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Importing/exporting UK/Europe after Brexit


David Ayers

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Just now, mjazzg said:

I've an order lined up from Holland, wondering whether to pull the trigger or not now. An extra 20% won't break the bank but...

...it would be annoying to pay tax on goods (and shipping) that have already been taxed in the country of origin, plus the customs fee for processing...

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45 minutes ago, David Ayers said:

...it would be annoying to pay tax on goods (and shipping) that have already been taxed in the country of origin, plus the customs fee for processing...

It might be a good idea to ask the seller to deduct VAT before ordering anything - at least until 1 July; from that date EU VAT regulations will change.

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1 hour ago, J.A.W. said:

It might be a good idea to ask the seller to deduct VAT before ordering anything - at least until 1 July; from that date EU VAT regulations will change.

Good point re. asking, though not all sellers will be able to do that. 

The change in EU rules is interesting. In the UK they haven’t yet confirmed what the arrangements are now, let alone if they will change. I’m assuming EU to UK should already be the same as USA to UK, which is tax on any shipment over £15, but they didn’t apply that to my recent order, so nothing is certain. 

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On 1/7/2021 at 4:45 PM, ejp626 said:

Not specifically Brexit-related but the shipping costs from Amazon.co.uk to Canada and presumably US have gone through the roof .  Will probably never order direct from them again but some of the individual sellers have rates more in line with what I used to pay.

I've noticed on Discogs that many UK-based sellers are either charging astronomical shipping rates or not shipping to the U.S. at all.  I've bought a number of CDs from UK proprietors online in the past but can't imagine doing so now--at least when I see the shipping rates for most of the items I'm interested in.  (One 2-CD set was 12 pounds but shipping was going to cost 40 pounds.)

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5 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

I've noticed on Discogs that many UK-based sellers are either charging astronomical shipping rates or not shipping to the U.S. at all.  I've bought a number of CDs from UK proprietors online in the past but can't imagine doing so now--at least when I see the shipping rates for most of the items I'm interested in.  (One 2-CD set was 12 pounds but shipping was going to cost 40 pounds.)

I guess you can blame the combination of Royal Mail and the US Postal Service for that. Royal Mail have recently applied some very big increases, including domestic Mail. Among other things, they have a big pension deficit of their people to bail out, not to mention massively dwindling business base from their ‘traditional’ letters and parcels business due to the likes of Amazon.

Edited by sidewinder
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6 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

I've noticed on Discogs that many UK-based sellers are either charging astronomical shipping rates or not shipping to the U.S. at all.  I've bought a number of CDs from UK proprietors online in the past but can't imagine doing so now--at least when I see the shipping rates for most of the items I'm interested in.  (One 2-CD set was 12 pounds but shipping was going to cost 40 pounds.)

You could always ask the retailer for a lower shipping amount by making an offer based on what you used to pay. It may be that the shipping shown is not the actual amount. 

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 From what I understand, Discogs has recently introduced a compulsory and automatic shipping rate system. This appears to have created difficult issues fro sellers in that shipping rates listed may not reflect the actual shipping cost - some sellers are highlighting this in their terms.

Probably worth contacting the seller

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16 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

 From what I understand, Discogs has recently introduced a compulsory and automatic shipping rate system. This appears to have created difficult issues fro sellers in that shipping rates listed may not reflect the actual shipping cost - some sellers are highlighting this in their terms.

Probably worth contacting the seller

Agree, I was one of the sellers pissed of by the new compulsory shipping policy, totally nonsense, after that I am done with discogs.

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On 13/01/2021 at 6:25 PM, J.A.W. said:

It might be a good idea to ask the seller to deduct VAT before ordering anything - at least until 1 July; from that date EU VAT regulations will change.

 

34 minutes ago, porcy62 said:

Agree, I was one of the sellers pissed of by the new compulsory shipping policy, totally nonsense, after that I am done with discogs.

That explains it. I don’t sell on discogs but I’ve noticed the pattern of crazy shipping rates. It’s going to drive away a lot of business. 

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2 minutes ago, David Ayers said:

 

That explains it. I don’t sell on discogs but I’ve noticed the pattern of crazy shipping rates. It’s going to drive away a lot of business. 

Expecially small sellers like me. I always found good deals on shipping with buyers. Maybe I am naive but I miss the times when buyers and sellers talked to each others in order to get a satisfactory deal.

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19 minutes ago, porcy62 said:

Expecially small sellers like me. I always found good deals on shipping with buyers. Maybe I am naive but I miss the times when buyers and sellers talked to each others in order to get a satisfactory deal.

I miss the flea market stuff within the UK. Now the postage costs more than the disc on the kind of cheap stuff I would pick up. Now I use discogs to identify stuff then look for it elsewhere. That said, you can still make a deal with the seller to invoice you for a different amount. But that is a hassle all round. 

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34 minutes ago, David Ayers said:

That said, you can still make a deal with the seller to invoice you for a different amount. But that is a hassle all round. 

Yes it IS a hassle but should be worth it. Back in the day when ordering from the US was still somewhat more affordable (particularly when Global Priority Flat Rate envelopes still gave you a good deal) I did this a couple of times with US eBay sellers and succeeded in about 80% of the cases. A frequent (initially rather puzzled) reply by the sellers was "Oh I just included the automatic shipping quote listed by eBay and I didn't know there was such as thing as GLOBAL priority flat rate shipping" (Yes, people, there IS a world outside the US ... :D) In these 80% of the cases they were happy to oblige and sometimes made a point of thanking for the hint as this would allow them better sales prospects with foreign customers as they'd be able to include better and relaistic shipping rates. In the remaining 20% the retorts were to the tune of "The word of eBay is THE GOSPEL" or "Can't be bothered". (Oh well ...)

This should work similarly with many Discogs sllers if you want to make the effort. I discussed this not long a ago with my son who as a side job during his university studies works part-time at a record shop that also sells through Discogs. They are pissed off with those recent shipping rate changes enforced by Discogs too but somehow do manually adjust the shipping invoiced to reflect an amount more in line with the ACTUAL shipping costs. But of course it means additional work and P2P communication with the customer.

Edited by Big Beat Steve
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You can sometimes get a better deal on shipping if you speak to seller and esp. when combining items, though more and more sellers simply don't want to be bothered... 

However, the base postal rates have skyrocketed.  Several sellers have commented that you simply cannot ship an LP from the US to Canada for less than $20 anymore, so it just isn't worth it in the majority of cases.  Brave new cloistered world...

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8 minutes ago, sidewinder said:

I guess once the powers that be in our various countries have all started introducing e-business taxes to help pay for the Covid costs, these charges will be even more astronomical.

After my last EU-UK order got through tax-free, I still hardly dare make another order in case the tax situation tightens. If I can find sellers prepared to ship to UK at all, that is. 

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