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Merchant of record questions in agentic checkout
The merchant of record is whoever is legally selling: responsible for tax, for consumer obligations and for disputes. In agentic checkout that can differ depending on where the purchase completed, and the practical risk is not that the answer is unfavourable but that most merchants have never asked it and will first encounter it during a dispute.
The merchant of record is whoever is legally selling: responsible for tax, for consumer protection obligations and for disputes. It is a settled question in most merchants’ direct sales and an open one in agentic checkout.
Why it becomes a question
Because the two live patterns differ. When a shopper lands on your own checkout, the answer is almost certainly what it always was. When the purchase completes inside a channel, another party is between you and the buyer, and the arrangement determines the position.
See which assistants send shoppers to your own checkout.
The questions worth resolving
- Who is the merchant of record for each channel you are exposed on?
- Who is responsible for collecting and remitting sales tax or VAT, particularly cross border?
- What appears on the customer’s statement?
- Who does the customer contact about a return, and who is contractually obliged to accept it?
- Who bears a chargeback, and what evidence is retained?
None of these is exotic. They are the questions any new sales channel raises, and they go unasked here because the channel arrived by default rather than through a negotiation.
The gap that causes support load
Whatever the legal position, the customer will contact whoever they believe they bought from. If that belief and the contractual position differ, you get the support burden without the standing to resolve it, or the reverse.
Worth knowing before it happens, because the first instance of it will arrive as a confused customer rather than as a legal question.
The returns consequence
Returns are where this becomes concrete fastest. If a customer believes they bought from the assistant and your policy is the one that applies, publish that policy clearly and make sure the channel is carrying it. See returns and agentic purchases.
Questions
Does this change if a purchase completes in the channel?
It can, and it is exactly the case to ask your platform about. When the checkout is not yours, the arrangement behind it is worth reading rather than assuming it matches your direct sales.
Why does it matter who the customer thinks they bought from?
Because that decides who they contact and who they dispute with. A mismatch between the legal position and the customer’s belief produces support load and chargebacks regardless of who is technically right.
Is this a reason to avoid agentic channels?
No. It is a reason to read the terms before the volume arrives. These are ordinary commercial questions with ordinary answers, and the only bad version is not knowing.