Parts from the UK

[Bmblbzzz]

"General lack of confidence in buying UK products" is cited in the article.

There was also a drop in confidence in British products, says Cycloc’s head of operations, Clare Lowe, with some “EU distributors stopping placing orders, citing cost of shipping and customs clearance as prohibitive”.

[Jdsk]

"General lack of confidence in buying UK products" is cited in the article.

There was also a drop in confidence in British products, says Cycloc’s head of operations, Clare Lowe, with some “EU distributors stopping placing orders, citing cost of shipping and customs clearance as prohibitive”.

Yes, I was impressed with the details and the lengths to which they have gone.

Here's the coverage from road.cc:
https://road.cc/content/news/brexit-cos ... les-298815
which includes this from Frog:

"Three months later, in April 2021, the co-owner of Frog Bikes — the children's bike manufacturer based out of a factory in Pontypool — said Brexit had cost him an extra £250,000 in the first two months of the year.

""I couldn't say there was anything positive," Jerry Lawson said at the time. "There's extra paperwork, and there are extra costs. And there's a whole lot of unknown.

""The paperwork is also incredible. To begin with, some of the countries wanted the paperwork in their language. Now we send them a commercial invoice with a whole lot of customs information. Plus, it's four or five times we have to print it."

and links to this, from Prendas Ciclismo:
https://road.cc/content/news/prendas-ci ... xit-284079

Jonathan

[thirdcrank]

I can't claim to be well-informed about any of this, but I wondered about this in the Graun link

But once new rules came into force in January 2021 after the end of the transition period, business started to slow, especially after Amazon stopped fulfilling orders for individual EU customers buying from Britain.

That implies to me that if Amazon decided it was no longer worth it (for whatever reason) then retail customers used to relying on Amazon to take care of the perceived hassle might be lost.

[Jdsk]

I can't claim to be well-informed about any of this, but I wondered about this in the Graun link

But once new rules came into force in January 2021 after the end of the transition period, business started to slow, especially after Amazon stopped fulfilling orders for individual EU customers buying from Britain.

That implies to me that if Amazon decided it was no longer worth it (for whatever reason) then retail customers used to relying on Amazon to take care of the perceived hassle might be lost.

I was interested in that reason.

Is it widespread?

Has it been discussed or explained here already?

Jonathan

[thirdcrank]

I can't claim to be well-informed about any of this, but I wondered about this in the Graun link

But once new rules came into force in January 2021 after the end of the transition period, business started to slow, especially after Amazon stopped fulfilling orders for individual EU customers buying from Britain.

That implies to me that if Amazon decided it was no longer worth it (for whatever reason) then retail customers used to relying on Amazon to take care of the perceived hassle might be lost.

I was interested in that reason.

Is it widespread?

Has it been discussed or explained here already?

Jonathan

I've no idea how much discussion there's been, but my experience of buying something from abroad under WTO terms was mentioned in a couple of posts on this thread.

viewtopic.php?p=1554484#p1554484

To summarise from unreliable memory, I found what I wanted - a Dachstein (?) wool hat - advertised by an American outfit on Amazon Marketplace. The basic Amazon offer at that time was that the UK customer paid a fee to Amazon in £ sterling, calculated to cover everything. If the actual cost was less, then Amazon would refund it, but if it was more Amazon would stand it. I appreciate Amazon isn't a charity, but that seemed to offer welcome simplicity.

In the event, the hat I bought was not one covered by the Amazon scheme, but I decided to go ahead anyway. In addition to the credit card charges including foreign currency extras, I eventually got a card from the Post Office, telling me my parcel was at the local delivery office awaiting payment of the duty. The delivery office is only a mile or so away, but pure hassle including a handling charge (IIRC £8-00)

I've since been attracted by a pullover advertised by the same firm but once bitten etc., so, in my case at least, Amazon's attempts to simplify things being unavailable stopped me buying something. Others may feel the same
========================================================================
PS I was wearing the hat this morning in the sub-zero temps, so I'm pleased with it, but I'd not go through the WTO hassle again

[PH]

"General lack of confidence in buying UK products" is cited in the article.

There was also a drop in confidence in British products, says Cycloc’s head of operations, Clare Lowe, with some “EU distributors stopping placing orders, citing cost of shipping and customs clearance as prohibitive”.

Yes I saw that, I still don't understand it. Who's confidence? I doubt many consumers know the country of origin for most of what they buy, an EU customer can buy a Cycloc from Rose in Germany for less than I can from Chain Reaction, or we can both buy direct (The EU customer via the OSS) for the same price. Yet sales are down 25%. I understand why distributors and retailers might lack confidence, or just not want the hassle, but Cycloc took on that hassle when they opened an EU warehouse, yet for some reason that failed and closed.
I don't know what the issue is with Amazon, they wouldn't survive without cross border trade, they're fully signed up to OSS, and moving goods in and out of the EU. Even taking on new suppliers who don't want to set up their own OSS.
I don't have any axe to grind in this, other than being frustrated by the lack of accurate explanation. We're not going to reverse Brexit, the only hope it to mitigate the effects and that isn't going to happen till we understand them.

[Bmblbzzz]

It reads to me that there was a drop in the EU distributors' confidence in selling UK goods.

[Audax67]

We've noticed that stuff ordered from the UK very often simply doesn't reach us. It wasn't so bad last year, but since before Christmas it's been terrible. Even birthday cards have been arriving a couple of weeks late.

[rjb]

The UK post has suffered from a recent ransomware attack which disabled their ability to send parcels abroad. There is possibly a backlog whilst they reboot all their systems.

Royal Mail restarts limited overseas post after cyber-attack - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64324000

[Audax67]

The UK post has suffered from a recent ransomware attack which disabled their ability to send parcels abroad. There is possibly a backlog whilst they reboot all their systems.

Royal Mail restarts limited overseas post after cyber-attack - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64324000

Thanks, that sounds about right. Reprehensible that they have kept mum about telling the public.

The ransomware swine have been going after hospitals here.

[Carlton green]

Royal Mail - they really should be obliged to change their name now - is pretty much a shadow of its former self in that quality of service has somewhat diminished. Our Christmas cards arrived about three weeks late and even now, after the usual Christmas rush, delivery ain’t good. My postie tells me that lack of staff is the issue and if so then RM have only themselves to blame for that situation. As far as I’m concerned it should - like a lot of other public service providers - never have been privatised.

[Sweep]

Royal Mail - they really should be obliged to change their name now - is pretty much a shadow of its former self in that quality of service has somewhat diminished. Our Christmas cards arrived about three weeks late and even now, after the usual Christmas rush, delivery ain’t good. My postie tells me that lack of staff is the issue and if so then RM have only themselves to blame for that situation. As far as I’m concerned it should - like a lot of other public service providers - never have been privatised.

I agree that they should change their name.

How on earth can they use the word "royal".

If they can what's to stop anyone else using the word, or, god forbid, Meghan and Co with their hoped for Sussex Royal, nipped in the bud I think.

[Jdsk]

...
How on earth can they use the word "royal".

If they can what's to stop anyone else using the word, or, god forbid, Meghan and Co with their hoped for Sussex Royal, nipped in the bud I think.

I suggest checking some business directories. "Royal" is commonly used.

Jonathan

[roubaixtuesday]

When considering the evisceration of small business parts exports by Brexit, I'm not entirely sure that dragging the name of Prince Andrew's Royal family further into the mud is really what the big issue is. YMMV.

[Sweep]

...
How on earth can they use the word "royal".

If they can what's to stop anyone else using the word, or, god forbid, Meghan and Co with their hoped for Sussex Royal, nipped in the bud I think.

I suggest checking some business directories. "Royal" is commonly used.

Jonathan

but the Royal in Royal Mail clearly refers to the monarch/the nation.

Hence Meghan's plans being scuppered I presume.

though I do rather wonder why she didn't revert to plan B - Sussex Royale - could have been a successful burger line - for a while.