Brexit realities in the hobby Industry!

[limburger 21655xp 1]

tick boxes are silly … just look at the ridiculous cookie dialogs that infest every website since the EU decided to make a law about that sort of stuff.
Most people don’t know why they have to pick any of the options, website use all sorts of tricks to get you tick the boxes that they want … net result is we get more hassle with zero benefit.

Trying to find loopholes like PSC do is only going to cause more problems.
Customers are going to want to know for sure that their order is under the limit.

Never mind the questions when orders get split because only parts get shipped …

Reminds me of the trick that certain companies used by providing invalid info on the shipping manifest which allowed them to skip taxes and custom duties. It worked because customs can’t afford to check every shipment … until they decided that there were an awful lot of ‘books’ getting shipped from china.

These initial few weeks/months/years will be the same.
Some companies are going to find and abuse every loophole they can find.
Some have enough resources to cover the extra costs.
And the rest will have to suffer …

[admiralandy 1647xp 0]

Talking of China, they might be getting trade embargoed due to there committing Genocide.

How that might affect FFG in the UK, and perhaps as consumers we need to think about that.

Its currently been debated anyway in a larger context as giving the power to the courts or parliament retaining the power to decide what country is committing genocide and therefore not trading with them.

 

I’m not a law major but that’s what I heard in the news today.

[somegeezer 18425xp 2]

@limburger the pop-ups aren’t required by the EU. I used to work for an internet privacy concern and their recommendation was use a banner but with the sorts of trackers people are concerned about disabled until users have permission.

The decision to show a pop-up on your first visit usually comes from the digital marketing folk who can’t live without their trackers.

[suddenParticipant 134xp 4]

Well, as someone who has always loved ”Made in the UK” Brexit is a disaster, and the rules seems to be really fuzzy.
I love Jaguar cars (I know, owned be a former colony but made in the UK) but since there are no clear rules at Jaguar in Sweden I now bought a Mercedes instead, great car but not made in the UK…

As a gamer / miniature painter I have bought almost all my stuff from the UK, there are great minis from small independent manufacturers. My last order this month got really pricey, custom fees and 25% swedish VAT…

I guess I have to find other places to buy from like Germany (like my car) or Poland. It feels like we are back in the -80’s when ordering from GW meant four weeks delivery, customs and more VAT…

Dear Brits, why did you leave…

[limburger 21655xp 1]

@somegeezer the entire cookie law monstrosity was designed, explained and exploited by idiots.
I’ve yet to see a website that uses those dialogs/banners without finding a way to make you feel guilty when disabling all of them.
It’s also not exactly impossible to track users without forcing them to eat your cookies.

//  —

@sudden we’re only “back in the 80’s” because the laws/regulations in place are likely to kill off the small independents who can’t afford to wade through the clear as mud red tape both sides have constructed.
GW will survive because they are big enough to eat the cost of adjusting to the new regulations and they have enough loyal addicts who will buy anything …

I do wonder if the impact would have been worse if Covid hadn’t been a thing.

[ninjillyParticipant 11673xp 3]

@sudden many of us stuck here wonder why every day…

[moonunitParticipant 4505xp 2]

I think the new status quo will take a while to settle in, but I can’t see either market giving up on the other, EU and GB that is. Sometimes people and businesses just need to adapt to changing circumstances outside their control. By all means, change your shopping habits, I may have to go without a few German and Spanish products for a while.

[limburger 21655xp 0]

Battle systems are letting customs take care of the VAT according to the recent update on their website :

As of January 1st 2021 the UK is no longer part of the EU for tax and customs purposes, so our prices for EU customers (except the Republic of Ireland) no longer include VAT and will appear cheaper. You can still order from the site in exactly the same way, but be aware that you may be required to pay the VAT and any associated customs fees to the courier before delivery (except Ireland, where we are clearing customs on your behalf). Depending on the VAT rate in your country the overall price should be approximately the same as it was before, but don’t forget that we have plenty of local stockists in the EU.

source :

Delivery & Returns

 

[phaidknott 7023xp 1]

I think Battle Systems have taken the correct stance here. We’ve all become used (here in the UK) to being able to order from the EU with no custom fees and/or import duty, it was only ordering stuff from the USA that used to trigger all the extra fees. Now we’re going to get hit with all the Duty no matter where we’re ordering from. And for UK companies (particularly the smaller ones) it’s going to be impossible for them to keep track of things in each destination address worldwide. So treating the EU like the rest of the world (customer pays duty and local VAT) is the only way they can forge ahead without getting swamped with paperwork.

The hobby just got more expensive (again), but when things settle down I wonder if we’ll start to see UK distributors (and EU distributors) start to crop up in the industry to get past this trade barrier. The answer to that I suppose is if there’s only going to be any significant savings by doing so (which I doubt there will be). Instead it’s going to be companies manufacturing under licence within the EU and the UK to achieve any savings in production and distribution (and the margins in doing so were pretty meagre before all this shenanigans).

So better keep cash on the shelf for the postie if you plan to order anything from the EU (as EU companies will probably have to do the same as Battle Systems and keep out of the quagmire the Brexit has bought upon us 🙁 )

 

[ninjillyParticipant 11673xp 2]

Interestingly I read a news report that people are having charges added for ebay purchases as well. Thank goodness we took back the control to pay more for everything.

On a more positive note, thanks to all the Indie of the Week segments, my list of UK model companies has grown. Might be nice to get a focus on some EU ones too

[avernosKeymaster 33946xp 0]

all purchases private or from companies will all require some form of fees and taxes, if it’s under £135 then it can be paid at the time of purchase, above that it will have to be paid before receipt in GB.

For the sub £135 purchases some people may get away with not paying them if they don’t get charged at the time or get checked in GB, otherwise work on the principle that any purchase over a border will cost more.

[danlee 22429xp 3]

To rub salt in the wound, this extra tax revenue is listed by the UK government as one of the (few) benefits of Brexit.

[sundancer 42882xp 1]

Adding insult to injury?

[osbad 4277xp 2]

In theory, as a UK citizen ordering from (say) France is now the same as ordering from the US.  I used to order from the US all the time (numerous kickstarters) until the US hiked postal costs and it was no problem.  Occasionally I got clobbered by import duties, occasionally I did not.  It wasn’t bureaucratic and wasn’t necessarily any more expensive than ordering from the UK depending on what I was buying and what the exchange rate was doing at the time, and of course I saved US sales tax in comparison to a US citizen buying the same goods, which was compensated by my having to pay import duties in the UK.  There is absolutely no sensible reason on this good green earth why ordering from France, Germany or Poland need be any more complex than buying stuff from the US always has been, but it seems to be, because reasons.  Once everyone has worked out what’s going on in theory it should settle down.

Needless to say as a UK citizen I won’t be buying from the EU if its more expensive and more hassle and my money will be spent instead within UK .  If everyone feels the same way across the economy, UK firms will benefit as they stand to gain more from UK sales than they lose in EU ones because the UK used to spend more in the EU than the EU did in the UK.  EU firms will lose out because they imported less from the UK than they exported so the money will go in the opposite direction.

Of course within our hobby it may be that the UK exported more to the EU did to the UK so “UK Plc” will lose out on the aggregate of the hobby market, or maybe not if “Euro board games” are included, but hey, it could be worse.  We could be fishermen…

I’m sure this will all come out in the wash and once the EU have got bored with confiscating truck drivers’ ham sandwiches and insisting they have had an inaccurate and pointless covid lateral flow testthings will settle down to a new equilibrium.

I fully expect in the longer term “EU distributors” for UK firms and”UK distributors” for EU firms will get set up so that the process becomes more efficient, much like currently happens with US trade.  I would imagine a Warlord Games or similar have already considered the possibility of setting up “Warlord Games (EU)” with an office and a couple of folks in Paris, Berlin, or Warsaw who can take delivery of bulk orders from Nottingham very efficiently and then ship them out in smaller parcels to EU addresses to prevent unecessary hassle for EU customers>  If they also extended the offer to share the trade with Mantic, and North Star or and other smaller companies then karma will smile gently upon them I am sure.

Back in the day I think John Stallard did that very same thing in the US for GW – setting up their US distribution hub?  And Ronnie Renton also was heavily involved in overseas distribution for GW I seem to recall, so there is plenty of expertise out there.  I would advise any tiddler companies to reach out to one of those guys with the hand of friendship and maybe a decent bottle of scotch and see what happens?

[limburger 21655xp 0]

Don’t forget that we’ve had to convert pounds to euros (and vice versa) before brexit as well, so the only real change is an extra intermediate layer that demands their share of the pie and a different person who gets to collect the VAT.

I also expect things to settle once the companies that never shipped outside of the EU get more familliar with the extra bits that are needed.

 

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