New law: Cancellation for completed checkouts

[mnlmaier]

Hi all,

We are currently planning the implementation of the required features to comply with the upcoming German law on online shopping and transactions, which will take effect this June. According to the mandatory cancellation policy for online purchases, customers must be able to cancel their orders without any unnecessary obstructions — ie there needs to be a button.

We could, of course, integrate a simple form, pre-fill it with a cart id (or similar), hook into the form events and further process cancellations ourselves, but having an automated button with connection to Commerce Carts and Products (in terms of automatically starting refund transactions, possibly adjusting inventory etc.) in the actual order view would make life a lot easier and would feel more "complete".

Below is some DeepL-translated information explaining the context:

From June 19, 2026, the so-called cancellation button will be mandatory for all online contracts for goods, services, and financial products concluded via an online user interface. This is provided for in a current draft law by the German government, which transposes the amended EU Consumer Rights Directive (EU 2023/2673) into German law.

The cancellation function must be designed in two stages:
Stage 1: After clicking on the button, the consumer is redirected to a page where they enter the relevant contract details and specify how they would like to receive confirmation of receipt of the cancellation.
Stage 2: The new Section 356a of the German Civil Code (BGB) stipulates that the entrepreneur must enable the consumer to transmit their withdrawal declaration and the information using a confirmation function. This confirmation function must also be clearly legible and labeled “Confirm withdrawal” or an equivalent wording.

Confirmation of receipt required: After exercising the right of withdrawal, the entrepreneur must send a confirmation of receipt on a durable medium (e.g., by email). This must contain the content of the withdrawal as well as the date and time.

(German Source: https://www.ihk.de/hannover/hauptnavigation/recht/wirtschafts-und-wettbewerbsrecht2/wettbewerbsrecht/widerrufs-button-6779328)

Is this something you guys might be interested to look into, or should we plan some kind of custom implementation?

Thanks a lot!

[lukeholder]

Thanks for the feedback. We will discuss this internally and see what we come up with!