December 13th GPSR – Another Brexit bonus?
Oh no, not another one?
Well I guess so. Those not in the loop may not know about import changes that effect customers inside the European-Union. GPSR – or General Product Safety 2024
Sellers from ‘over seas’ now need to electronically file various regulatory bits of information for each product sold. Not too scary right? Well, as a ‘business’ human that has witnessed export the devastation of Brexit, the 13th kinda feels like the nail in the coffin.
Very quick back story.. Shortly after the earth cooled, lets say 2015 “2015” TFW8b was doing just fine thanks. My ‘business model’ was to make cool things and sell them to whoever though my things were indeed cool. And to pump the profits into the next cool thing. I simply made and shipped One Million 8bit things per day, with shipping costs around £12.99 worldwide!
Then Brexit. EU Customers dwindled due to added costs. Then Covid resulted in broken supply chains. 10x price inflation on some chippery was the result. But the main killer was the cost of shipping to our neighbours. Now averaging around £40 per package, it’s the Brexit bonus just keeps on giving. Anywho, things are what they are, prices went up orders went down. But now we have Dec 13th 🙁
From Dec 13th if you sell in the EU+NI, Ebay & various other websites require you to summit a big old load of information about compliance, hazards etc. I’ve got no massive problem with that, as the turmoil of Brexit meant I had to get a bunch of export codes sorted out just so I could get things off this Island. But as from the 13th ‘Rest of World’ businesses are required to have a registered address in each in the EU and must file hazard documentation / data for on each product sold. To be clear, this applies to New & Used goods sold to EU + NI Customers and not just on ebay etc. If your business sells to EU customers via website or mail-order you need to comply with GPSR.
BTW, it’s only slightly easier if you are trading EU-EU as you won’t need a 3rd party office to file your documentation with which will lower the costs considerably.. But it you do indeed need to file GPSR data.
So, what am I going to do? Well, ebay EU shipping will be removed shortly. And the more I look into it, the same will have to happen to my website. Because as it stands right now, I really can’t see a way small fry like me, can make small batches of cool things and ship into the EU while being compliant.
And finally, a special mention must go out for those of you in the USA. I guess we can all assume at some point over the next 4 years, TAX (See import duty) will be levied in USA customers. If you are an American, ask your Canada cousins how much it costs to brings things in from Europe. Ouches.
So is small scale manufacture & distribution dead? Well to me it certainty looks likes it’s pining for the fjords.
09/12/2024 @ 6:49 pm
My reading is you don’t need an agent in every country, but you do need an agent within the EU.
It appears to be geared for an importer model, which I agree, would be fine for medium or larger companies, but is significantly opressive for small businesses.
And I’m surprised (honestly surprised) that more noise hasn’t been made about this on the UK side. UK micro-businesses and start-ups are *uniquely* screwed here, and there’s usually some level of shouting going on at government level that would be at least heard… But not a peep.
Usually we get to this point and suddenly find a set of small business exceptions, or some /almost/ reasonable mechanism for managing this process, but there’s been nothing. So the best we can probably hope for is hell and damage before Christmas (Merry Seasons) and try to deal with all the damage in the New Year.
Hope you can weather the storm, with the best of the UK market for now.
13/12/2024 @ 5:43 pm
Thanks for your kind words.
In the last few days, I’ve seen the ‘Brexit numbers’. Basically the first trading year since they slammed our borders shut. And guess what, things are far from good.
I honestly don’t think small UK exporters can survive this. You are correct that I don’t need a agent in each county (I’ve edited the post).. But I do need much time, much money just to sell a 10th of what I used to sell pre-brexit.
Those Sunlit uplands they told us about, turned out to be covered in ship! #WhoKnew .RH
16/12/2024 @ 3:57 pm
It would actually be *worse* if you were inside the EU as then your country could impose a fine on your company if you do not comply with GPSR. As you are in the UK, outside of EU-jurisdiction now, the worst that could happen is that your package gets held up in customs. But from experience there are *way too many* packages for customs to even sample a meaniningfull percentage. From experience I know that only those packages get held up that are suspicious to begin with (e.g. large boxes from China declared as $10 / Gift).
Essentially GPSR was made to stop Temu and AliBaba to sell dangerous electronic crap to the EU. But the side effect is that small manufacturers are scared away. EBay and such must keep their platforms clean due to the EU Digital Markets Act. But I am nearly 100% sure that your website-business will not be affected by this if you just keep shipping as you did before.