General Terms and Conditions

General Terms and Conditions with Customer Information

 

Table of Contents

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1. Scope
2. Conclusion of Contract
3. Right of Withdrawal
4. Prices and Terms of Payment
5. Delivery and Shipping Conditions
6. Retention of Title
7. Liability for Defects (Warranty)
8. Applicable Law
9. Venue of Jurisdiction
10. Alternative Dispute Resolution

 

  1. Scope

1.1  These General Terms and Conditions (hereinafter referred to as "GTC") of Echle Hartstahl GmbH (hereinafter referred to as "Seller") apply to all contracts for the delivery of goods concluded by a consumer or entrepreneur (hereinafter referred to as "Customer") with the Seller with regard to the goods presented by the Seller in its online shop. The inclusion of the Customer's own terms and conditions is hereby contradicted, unless otherwise agreed.

1.2   A consumer within the meaning of these GTC is any natural person, who concludes a legal transaction for purposes that are predominantly neither commercial nor within her/his independent professional activity. An entrepreneur within the meaning of these GTC is a natural, legal person or a legal partnership, who when concluding a legal transaction, is exercising her/his commercial or independent professional activity.

 

  1. Conclusion of the Contract

2.1   The product descriptions contained in the Seller's online shop do not represent binding offers on the Seller’s behalf, rather said descriptions enable the customer’s submitting a binding offer to purchase any goods.

2.2   The Customer can submit the offer using the online order form integrated in the Seller's online shop. After placing the selected goods in the virtual shopping cart and going through the electronic ordering process, the Customer submits a legally binding contract offer for the goods in the shopping cart by clicking the button, which concludes the ordering process.

2.3  The Seller can accept the Customer's offer within five days,
- by sending the Customer a written order confirmation, otherwise an order confirmation in text form (by either fax or email), whereby the Customer's receipt of the order confirmation is decisive, or
- by delivering the ordered goods to the Customer, whereby the receipt of the goods by the Customer is decisive, or
- by asking the Customer to pay after placing her/his order. If several of the aforementioned alternatives exist, the Contract is concluded at the time when one of said alternatives occurs first. The period for Seller’s accepting the offer begins on the day after the offer is sent by the Customer and concludes at the end of the fifth day following the sending of said offer. If the Seller does not accept the Customer's offer within the aforementioned period, this is deemed to be a rejection of the offer, with the result that the Customer is no longer bound by her/his declaration of intent.

2.4   When submitting an offer via the Seller's online order form, the text of the contract is saved by the Seller after the contract has been concluded and sent to the Customer in text form (e.g. by e-mail, fax or letter) after the Customer has sent her/his order. No further provision of contract text by the Seller occurs. If the Customer has set up a user account in the Seller's online shop before submitting her/his order, the order data will be archived on the Seller's website and can be accessed free of charge by the Customer via her/his password-protected user account by providing the relevant login data.

2.5  Before the binding submission of the order via the Seller's online order form, the Customer can identify possible input errors by carefully reading the information displayed on the screen. An effective technical means for better recognition of input errors can be the browser's zoom function, which is used to enlarge the display on the screen. The Customer can correct her/his entries as part of the electronic ordering process using the usual keyboard and mouse functions until s/he clicks the button that concludes the ordering process.

2.6  To bindingly conclude the contract, German can be used as your preferred language.

2.7   Order processing and contact are usually carried out by e-mail and automated order processing. Therefore, the Customer must ensure that the e-mail address provided by her/him for processing the order is correct so that the e-mails sent by the Seller can be received at her/his address. In particular, when using spam filters, the Customer must ensure that all e-mails, which have been sent by the Seller or by third parties commissioned with the order processing, can be delivered.

 

  1. Right of Withdrawal

3.1   Consumers generally have a right of withdrawal.

3.2   Further information on the right of withdrawal can be found in the Seller’s cancellation policy.

 

  1. Prices and Terms of Payment

4.1   Unless otherwise stated in the Seller's product description, the prices indicated are total gross prices, which include statutory sales (value added) tax. Any additional delivery and shipping costs, which may arise, are specified separately in the respective product description.

4.2   The payment option (s) will be communicated to the Customer in the Seller's online shop.

4.3   If prepayment via bank transfer has been agreed upon, payment is due immediately after the contract’s conclusion, unless both parties have agreed to a later due date in writing.

 

  1. Delivery and Shipping Conditions

5.1   If the Seller offers to ship the goods, delivery shall be made within the delivery area specified by the Seller to the delivery address specified by the Customer, unless otherwise agreed. When processing the transaction, the delivery address specified in the Seller's order processing shall be decisive.

5.2   If the delivery of the goods fails for reasons for which the Customer is responsible, the Customer shall bear the reasonable costs incurred by the Seller. This does not apply with regard to the shipping costs if the Customer effectively exercises her/his right of withdrawal. For the return costs, if the Customer exercises her/his right of withdrawal, the provisions made in the Seller’s cancellation policy apply.

5.3  If the customer is acting as an entrepreneur, the risk of accidental loss and accidental deterioration of the sold goods shall pass to the customer as soon as the seller has delivered the goods to the forwarding agent, the carrier or any other person or institution designated to carry out the shipment. If the customer is acting as a consumer, the risk of accidental loss and accidental deterioration of the goods sold shall in principle only pass to the customer or a person authorised to receive the goods when the goods are handed over to the customer. In deviation from this, the risk of accidental loss and accidental deterioration of the sold goods shall also pass to the customer in the case of consumers as soon as the seller has delivered the item to the forwarding agent, the carrier or the person or institution otherwise designated to carry out the shipment if the customer commissions the forwarding agent, the carrier or the person or institution otherwise designated to carry out the shipment to carry out the shipment and the seller has not previously named this person or institution to the customer.

5.4   The seller reserves the right to withdraw from the contract in the event of incorrect or improper self-delivery. This shall only apply in the event that the seller is not responsible for the non-delivery and the seller has concluded a specific covering transaction with the supplier with due diligence. The Seller shall make all reasonable efforts to procure the goods. In the event of non-availability or only partial availability of the goods, the customer will be informed immediately and the consideration will be refunded without delay.

5.5   Local pickup is not possible for logistical reasons.

 

  1. Retention of Title

If the Seller has received any partial advance payment, s/he retains ownership of the delivered goods until the purchase price owed has been paid in full.

 

  1. Liability for Defects (Warranty)

7.1   Unless otherwise stated in the following provisions, the provisions of the statutory liability for defects shall apply. In deviation from this, the following applies to contracts for the delivery of goods:

7.2   If the customer is acting as an entrepreneur,
- the seller has the choice of the type of supplementary performance;
- in the case of new goods, the limitation period for defects is one year from delivery of the goods;
- in the case of used goods, the rights and claims for defects are excluded;
- the limitation period does not begin again if a replacement delivery is made within the scope of liability for defects.

7.3   The above-mentioned limitations of liability and shortening of deadlines do not apply to
- to claims for damages and reimbursement of expenses of the customer,
- in the event that the Seller has fraudulently concealed the defect,
- for goods which have been used in accordance with their customary use for a building and have caused its defectiveness,
- for any existing obligation of the seller to provide updates for digital products, in the case of contracts for the delivery of goods with digital elements.

7.4   Furthermore, for entrepreneurs, the statutory limitation periods for any statutory right of recourse shall remain unaffected.

7.5   If the customer acts as a merchant within the meaning of § 1 of the German Commercial Code (HGB), he shall be subject to the commercial duty of inspection and notification of defects pursuant to § 377 of the German Commercial Code (HGB). If the customer fails to comply with the notification obligations regulated therein, the goods shall be deemed to have been approved.

7.6   If the customer is acting as a consumer, he is requested to complain about delivered goods with obvious transport damage to the deliverer and to inform the seller of this. If the customer does not comply with this, this shall have no effect on his statutory or contractual claims for defects.

 

  1. Applicable Law

The law of the Federal Republic of Germany applies to all legal relationships between both parties, excluding the laws regarding the international purchase of movable goods. In the case of consumers, this choice of law only applies insofar as the protection granted by mandatory provisions of the law of the state, in which the consumer has her/his habitual residence, is not withdrawn. 

 

  1. Venue of Jurisdiction

If the Customer acts as a merchant, legal entity under public law or special fund under public law with its legal seat within the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, the exclusive place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising from this contract is the Seller's place of business. If the Customer is based outside the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Seller's place of business is the exclusive place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising from this contract, if the contract or claims, which arise from the contract, can be attributed to the Customer's professional or commercial activity. In the above cases, however, the Seller is nonetheless always entitled to request the court venue at the Customer's registered legal address.

 

  1. Alternative Dispute Resolution

10.1   The EU Commission provides a platform for online dispute resolution on the internet at the following link: https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr
This platform serves as a contact point for the out-of-court settlement of disputes arising from online sales or service contracts, in which a consumer is involved.

10.2   The Seller is neither obliged nor willing to participate in a dispute settlement procedure before a consumer arbitration board.

 

 

The original German source text, which has been herein translated into English for these GTC, is the only authentic text in the event of discrepancies between said German text and any translation into any other foreign language.

Status of original German document: June, 2022 [translated from German into English on the 1th of July, 2022]