Post-Brexit and Customs fees

Since Friday 31st January 2021, changes as a result of Brexit has meant that for some businesses overseas, dealing with certain deliveries has been less than desirable. 

We occasionally receive emails from our European customers, expressing disappointment that they have had to pay expensive duties in order to receive their packages. In some cases, these emails can be quite unforgiving, stating that they shouldn't be paying VAT costs, but this often comes down to confusing VAT with customs fees. We will never charge VAT on European orders, as most European countries are exempt from paying this, which in itself would be reflected on received invoice receipts. In addition to this, our website in both German and English languages gives this warning about fees during checkout, if the customer is not in the UK.

Another change to shipping is that overseas customers will no longer receive documents in a pouch, affixed to the shipping box, as they might ordinarily expect. This is because UPS use EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) labels, which enables messages to be exchanged between information systems and therefore increases efficiency in handling.

However, customs fees are beyond our control; we do not set these and we never know how much a customer will be asked to pay when it enters their country. It must be understood by the customer that should they place any order with us, they are expected to cover these duties; we cannot do anything to change this and we will not mark down the cost of items as we would be breaching compliance. 

We also make mention of additional charges on our Terms and Conditions Page.