The holiday season is often the busiest time of year for many online businesses, and while that can be a great thing for increasing your revenue, clearing out inventory, and promoting your offers to new audiences, it can also leave you legally vulnerable.
Between preparing for your Black Friday sales, getting everything together for affiliate promotions, or even offering end-of-year discounts, the rush of the holiday season often causes business owners to overlook their legal compliance.
And unfortunately, a few innocent mistakes, especially around how you advertise and sell your offers, can land you in hot water with the FTC or even lead to disputes with your customers.
So, before you hit “publish” on your next promo email or update your website banners, let’s make sure your holiday sales strategy is both effective and legally sound.
3 Mistakes To Avoid as an Online Business Owner During Holiday Sales
Mistake #1: Using Misleading or Non-Compliant Marketing Language
If there’s one area that really catches business owners off guard during the holidays, it’s marketing language.
What’s important to know is that The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) keeps a close eye on how products and services are advertised, especially when words like “limited-time offer” and “biggest sale ever” start flooding the internet.
The Mistake: Making exaggerated or deceptive claims without proper proof or context.
Common examples of this include:
- Claiming your offer is “only available for 24 hours” when you plan to extend it
- Advertising “up to 80% off” when only one or two items actually qualify
- Making income or results claims (like “Make $10K by Christmas!”) without substantiating evidence
Even something as simple as not properly disclosing affiliate relationships can violate FTC rules.
(But honestly, that’s a whole conversation that deserved its own blog post, so here you go!)
The Fix: Be transparent and factual with every claim you make.
Meaning, if you use urgency, make sure it’s real and ends when you say it will. If you promote discounts, clearly list the original prices and what qualifies (and yes, it has to be a real discount – not just a value number that’s been slashed down).
Additionally, if you use testimonials, make sure you have permission (that’s what the Testimonial Release is for!) and ensure that they reflect typical customer results, not just best-case scenarios.
And lastly, if you’re sharing affiliate links, disclose that clearly by using language like: “This post contains affiliate links, meaning I may earn a commission if you purchase through my link. This comes at no extra cost to you.”
Mistake #2: Selling Without the Right Legal Agreements in Place
During the holidays, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of new customers and extra income, but if you’re selling anything online, whether it’s a digital product, course, or service, you must have the right legal foundation in place first!
The Mistake: Relying on checkout buttons or “assumed terms” instead of actual legal agreements.
This is especially risky if:
- You’re offering digital downloads or courses without a Terms of Purchase agreement.
- You’re promoting affiliate links or partnerships without an Affiliate Agreement.
- You’re driving holiday traffic to a website that doesn’t have a Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, or Disclaimer in place.
Because here’s the thing… when things go wrong, like a customer requesting a refund outside your policy or a client disputing payment, your contracts are what keep your business legally protected. But if you don’t have those in place, then you have nothing to back you up and you’ll end up spending lots of time, money, and energy in places you don’t want to.
The Fix: Before you start promoting your holiday sales, whether it be a Black Friday deal, an end-of-year discount, or anything else of the sort, make sure you have the right legal agreements in place (and have them linked in the right spots!).
A few key legal agreements you definitely want to have are:
- Terms of Purchase – this agreement defines refund policies, access rights, and payment terms for digital products, courses, and programs. It’s what keeps you protected if a buyer later claims they “didn’t know” your policy.
- Website Protection Bundle – this bundle includes your Website Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, both of which are required for every online business and help ensure your website complies with FTC and international data privacy standards.
- Affiliate Agreement – If you run an affiliate program for your holiday promotions, this contract protects you and your affiliates by clearly stating how commissions are earned, when they’re paid, and what marketing tactics are allowed.
If you know that your business is missing ALL of these legal agreements, then the Chief Legal Officer Suite is about to be your new best friend.
The CLO Suite is an all-in-one online business contract bundle designed especially for online business owners. Instead of purchasing contracts a la carte, the Suite gives you a complete set of done-for-you, lawyer-drafted legal templates that cover nearly every scenario in your business, from onboarding clients to protecting your website to selling digital offers.
With the Chief Legal Officer Suite, you get over 40 contract templates that have been professionally written and are easy to personalize so that your entire business is protected from end to end! 👏🏼
Mistake #3: Overlooking Refund and Return Policy Clarity
While the holidays can bring a surge of buyers to your products or services, it’s important to know that a lot of people get “add to cart” happy this time of year and do a lot of impulse buying… which means that as a business owner, you can typically expect a surge of refund requests, too.
And that’s why you need to ensure your refund and return policy is in check before promoting your holiday sales or else you could end up wishing you never ran the sale in the first place!
The Mistake: Not having clear, legally enforceable refund terms (or failing to communicate them properly).
Even if your refund policy is “no refunds,” that policy must be clearly stated before purchase. Otherwise, customers could file disputes or chargebacks, claiming they didn’t understand your terms. (For more details on an effective “no refund” policy, click here!)
This mistake is especially common among digital product sellers and coaches running holiday promotions. For example, someone could buy your course at a steep discount, decide later they don’t want it, and demand a refund, without realizing your policy says otherwise.
The Fix: Put your refund policy in writing and make it visible at checkout.
Your refund policy should always be included in your Terms of Purchase and should detail:
- Whether or not refunds are available (and under what conditions)
- How refunds must be requested
- Any time limits (like “requests must be made within 7 days”)
- What happens if a customer files a chargeback
How to Avoid These Legal Mistakes and Protect Your Holiday Sales
While it might seem like there’s a lot of legal “rules” you need to follow during the holiday sales season, the truth is that these are all things that your business needs to run smoothly anytime of year.
And luckily for you, it really doesn’t have to be complicated!
Here at The Boutique Lawyer, we’ve taken the guesswork out of legal compliance for you and made it super simple for you to access and implement all of the contracts you need as an online business owner.
You can shop what you need here in the contract template shop OR you can go ahead and grab the ultimate contract bundle for online business owners so that all of your bases are covered at once!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR, AMBER GILORMO – ATTORNEY AND FOUNDER OF THE BOUTIQUE LAWYER
Amber Gilormo is the cool lawyer behind The Boutique Lawyer – a one-stop contract template shop for creative entrepreneurs, online business owners, coaches, and service providers.
From client agreements to digital product terms and everything in between, our lawyer-drafted templates take the guesswork out of staying legally protected online (no legal jargon required).
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