Most Retailers have come to understand and become comfortable with Tax and Accounting requirements in the traditional in-store retail model. However, the eCommerce sector is continuing to grow rapidly each year. With the yearly increase in online shoppers, there is also a rapid rise in new online stores across the globe. Digital purchases surged between March 2023 and March 2025. Overall, sales on eCommerce sites grew by 17.8% in 2025 to reach $1.63 trillion. With increasing online sales are increasing business revenues and new tax obligations.
As online sales become mainstream, eCommerce companies must become aware of and comply with the new set of accounting and tax online compliance requirements. Let’s discuss in this article how eCommerce brands in the B2B sector can maintain regulatory compliance for online sales across their global distributor and business partner network.
eCommerce and Tax Compliance
According to the “State of Commerce” report from Salesforce, 35% of commerce organizations have rated their digital commerce as “extremely successful.” 55% have rated it as “moderately successful.”
Since 2020, companies have increased their investments in digital commerce. The Salesforce report concludes that:
- 83% of high performers spent more on digital commerce in 2023 (than in 2022).
- 61% of moderate performers increased their digital investments.
- Only 27% of underperformers increased their investments.
Going forward, companies will continue to increase their reliance on digital channels and technologies. They plan to leverage digital sales channels to improve their global reach and increase their online sales. This also creates new tax obligations and laws for online business.
U.S states with economic nexus laws require out-of-state online sellers to collect and remit their general sales tax. They also must provide a safe harbor for small businesses (or those selling below the allowed threshold). For instance, the state of Alabama has a threshold of $250,000 in total retail sales.
How do the prevailing laws for online business impact companies selling to consumers directly (or through a distributor network)? Let’s discuss some of the eCommerce laws next.
5 Prevailing Online Laws for eCommerce Companies
Despite its recent advancement as a business option, eCommerce is still relatively new. Law and regulatory authorities are bringing new laws that cater to ecommerce. At the same time online businesses are trying their best to adapt to and meet these new online compliance regulatory requirements. Here are five prevailing laws for online businesses / online compliance regulatory requirements that every eCommerce brand must be aware of
1. Tax Laws
For eCommerce companies, tax laws vary across U.S. states and locations. State-wide sales tax is applicable across 45 states, and Washington D.C. Additionally, local sales tax rates are applicable in different cities or counties.
For eCommerce distributors operating in these states, they must be aware of the eCommerce laws and the right tax amount applicable in each area. This can directly impact their profit margins. Besides sales tax, there are some eCommerce laws that must be taken care of:
- Import duties
- Environmental taxes (if applicable)
- Advance taxes
2. Payment Gateways
As online payments become more prevalent, eCommerce companies must secure their payment gateways to protect customer payments as well as customer privacy and information. Failure to do so can attract heavy penalties & fines, along with a loss of customer trust.
To secure online payments, B2B brands must look for payment solutions that comply with the following online compliance regulations:
- DCI-PSS regulation
- GDPR (applicable in Europe)
- HTTPS connection for all payments
- Anti-fraud protection
3. Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks
eCommerce companies must also comply with online compliance requirements related to intellectual property laws (patents, copyrights, and trademarks) applicable in each U.S. state. Each of these terms is defined by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Depending on their jurisdiction, eCommerce brands must protect their intellectual property from other competitors. Likewise, using any other company’s intellectual property (without consent) is an act of violation and can attract lawsuits.
4. Age-related Restrictions
To avoid any penalties, eCommerce companies must also comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). This online compliance law requires companies to request parental consent to collect any personal information from children (under the age of 13). For every age-restricted product, eCommerce brands must comply with the country’s codes and verify the buyer’s age.
5. Inventory-related Laws
This is applicable for small eCommerce brands & distributors operating their business from their home locations. Property laws are still applicable to companies holding substantial inventories. Any home-based business still needs to comply with online compliance with reference to zoning laws and local homeowners’ rules and regulations.
Role of Technology in Compliance Management
Technology and an efficient Compliance Management Solution can play a vital role in managing compliance within an organization. Businesses need a solution that can help them meet ever changing compliance requirements in an efficient manner. Let’s see how a strong compliance management tool can help eCommerce companies.
Implement a solution that can enable businesses by integrating smart digital compliance processes into their business operations. As a compliance management system, Compliance Cart is leading transformation of compliance management through digitization and enabling eCommerce retailers to manage compliance across their global distributor network.
Compliance Cart, a Saas based Compliance Exchange platform, enables centralized and collaborative compliance management for eCommerce companies across all their business partner networks including vendors, suppliers or distributors on a single platform.
By using Compliance Cart, online sellers can:
- Monitor real-time compliance requirements and status.
- Communicate compliance requirements and collaborate with internal partners or external partners like suppliers, distributors, vendors, business partners or compliance consultants.
- Store and manage all compliance-related data from a centralized location.
- Share and exchange the data in a secure manner.
Conclusion
The growing eCommerce industry needs to manage the complexity of compliance regulations, including taxes, intellectual property, and other industry laws. As highlighted in this article, accounting and tax requirements for online compliance are uniquely different for the eCommerce sector. It is quite clear that eCommerce companies must give high importance to implementing a strong Compliance Management Solution.
Are you looking for a reliable compliance management system for your eCommerce business? Contact us now.
Some Features of Compliance Cart:
- Is completely secure.
- Is scalable for growing business needs.
- Create and maintain a business profile (KYC) of vendors, distributors or business partners.
- Access to a repository of ready-to-use compliance sets (questionnaires) and ability to create or customize any number of compliance sets.
- Conduct realt-time regular risk assessments, run reports and be well prepared for Audits.
- The Compliance Calendar to stay up to date with important dates.
- Notifications and alerts to follow through action points.
