So I decided to try out the entrepreneurial route and sell my own products, but I got stuck at the legal aspects. I was able to find very little information about what you must know as a starter so you don't get later into trouble, from the perspective of a single business owner that doesn't yet afford a lawyer or other specialists.
If this has been thoroughly discussed or presented on this forum or somewhere else then I apologize and kindly request some pointers, but if not then maybe we can make this thread as complete a guide as possible together with the questions of others in a similar situation to me.
First, I read a bit about certification and I'd like to avoid it as much as possible, and it seems like selling the product as a kit is the way to go but I think there is a lot of clarify about what does and does not qualify as a kit and what are the international restrictions that still apply to kits.
My point is that I want to have the product assembled to the maximally complete state that still legally qualifies as a kit.
Does soldering a pin header qualify a kit? What about connecting a JST cable, or simply screwing the PCB into place?
Does the kit still need to be RoHS compliant? Can it contain lithium batteries (excluding the air shipping ban)?
What happens when in your kit, along standard unmodified items like power supplies you also have modified OEM items? Do you need to contact the OEM company and have an agreement if you want to include parts of their product (even if you don't make use of their brand) or the modified product?
For example, I want to sell a reflow oven kit. The PCB controller uses a plastic case from another disassembled product (cheap enough to discard the other components), and the electric oven is modified at both mains wiring, thermal insulation and front panel. You might say I can leave the oven hacking to the customer and just provide the controller, but I've spent quite some time researching on how to obtain satisfactory thermal parameters out of a kitchen oven and it's plenty of modifications required that I as a customer, would happily pay away to the manufacturer to have them properly pre-made.
Does all this depend on whether you sell in EU, US or somewhere else? From a crowdsourcing perspective, you've got to be able to ship to any country. Now, suppose there is a country that has specific import regulations, you surely want to find out such as to either make your product comply with it or just exclude the country from shipping. I don't think reading all countries' legislation is feasible, the question is if you will be notified by the post company or by some state authority before being sanctioned or not. Simply put, when you are shipping a crowd funded product, are you walking on a mine field or can you have a good level of control?