GPSR horror (argh!)

[angelicdespot 4693xp 0]

I’m by no means an expert in legalese but this:

“For clarity, this is the part of the GPSR amendment that as I understand it has people worried.

Responsible person. Manufacturers that are not based in the EU must establish an operator within the EU that is responsible for compliance with the GPSR, and they should be identified on the product or its packaging. Their role will include being the point of contact for supervisory authorities enforcing GPSR obligations and conducting compliance checks of the product’s documentation and safety information.”

Sounds very much like companies – even small companies – inside the EU are not going to be significantly impacted. If they’re operating a safe business, they’ve nothing to worry about. The bureaucratic (and costly) impact is for small businesses outside the EU who want to sell into the EU.

One of the companies mentioned above (I forget which one, but this was from a post on Instagram) said that the UK was going to be introducing a similar law in the near future.

 

[zoidpinhead 12496xp 1]

The key appears to be, as a few have mentioned, that if you are selling safe products there won’t be a concern.  However, it is clear that there must be someone based in the EU who is prepared to vouch for the safety of your products and the correctness of your statements about it.  This will be an additional expense and will cause issues for the hobby as many miniature manufacturers are UK based.

The solution would be for one of the EU manufacturers to get paid a small fee to sign-off on the safety descriptions and be the name and address required for labelling compliance.  If they don’t want to then perhaps someone like Karwansaray Publishing might be able to do it?  They won’t need to stock or sell things and they get sent loads of samples of products to review anyway.  If they charge a sensible admin fee then even small manufacturers might be able to afford it.

[hutch 5300xp 1]

You can also add Alternative Armies to the list of companies

[wolfie65Participant 1240xp 1]

My personal favorite is still ‘This is not a toy’ – on the back of a toy soldier blister…..

Without getting into politics – which is really just puppet theater for adults – there are WAY too many people in power who should have never had any and a Mad Max/Walking Dead type future is becoming more and more unavoidable.

[limburger 21763xp 1]

It is going to impact small businesses (even the ones in the EU), because they have to add yet another layer of admin just to make sure the forms have all the correct answers and boxes ticked.

We’ve seen how Brexit wrecked the industry as there was a lot of time that needed to be wasted on making sure the forms needed to transport goods from the UK into the EU (and back) had the correct paperwork, despite the fact that all of that had been done with zero issues before. Sure … we eventually got systems and work-arounds in place to do all of that (Mantic sending their orders as ‘kickstarter pledge’ still has me giggle a bit), but the delay did a real number on the small companies and their profits within our niche.

And what is this going to achieve ?
The big boys will just wait for the law suits and claims, because they can afford the lawyers to find the loop holes they need.
The ones selling crap will continue to sell cheap crap, because they never cared anyway. The data they gather may be worth any loss …

The little guys will lose, because they never ever will have the resources to provide a full audit trail to anything they buy. There is a lot of implied trust within that level of business.

Besides … are we as consumers really going to check if the paperwork is correct ?
We ‘trust’ the CE markings even though we also know they are easily copied.
Heck, I doubt any of us know what half the existing regulations are for the things we use, because we kind of trust corporations not to sell us potential dangerous goods.

All this will achieve is angry customers who find that the stuff they bought got confiscated or delayed, because someone forgot to dot all of the i’s and cross all of the t’s. I’ve seen this happen since Brexit and there’s always that layer of fear, uncertainty and doubt when ordering from across the pond as a result. Never mind the additional cost that we’ve had to pay as a result of this paperwork.

[grantinvanman 2227xp 1]

Sounds like BREXIT was way worse for EU and Britain, like a bitter divorce, than for say UK and ordering into Canada. Ordering from EU is also easy from Canada.

Ironically, I would rather order from UK or EU than the U.S., which has more expensive postal rates, when VAT reduction is factored.

Weird

 

[jamescutts 6931xp 2]

I suspect this will get resolved much like the VAT changes over time, luckily a lot of the UK based miniatures companies went through that so once they know processes and what to do they should hopefully be able to get it resolved. The key difference being a named contact within the EU. Its not dissimilar to a lot of what already happens so I suspect it will only time time to implement, its pretty much the same as when you buy that bottle of beer from Poland for example… it says imported by A Company, at A address in the UK.

As others have said its clearly aimed for example at the likes of Aliexpress, Temu, Amazon, Ebay sellers who will sell just about anything direct with little concern about quality or saftey of the goods. In principle its a good think but it is going to impact many businesses until clear guidance and action is available to them.

Its worth nothing that its not just UK companies affected, those in the US and the rest of the world will also be impacted. The only real Brexit related element (outside of it would apply if brexit hadnt happened) is that the situation for Northern Ireland under this is a complete mess as they are both in and out the EU so selling to NI is also troublesome for UK sellers.

[horati0nosebl0wer 19657xp 0]

Not really sure about the overall ins and outs of the regulations but it strikes me as similar to legal codes in the US. California has product compliance codes that I still laugh at that requires a warning that such-and-such a product has chemicals that are known to the state of California to be carcinogenic (something like that). Legalese isn’t my first language but “the letter of the law” and “the spirit of the law” seem to point in that direction. I think it would be an inhibition on anyone doing metal figures that use lead and anything resin that would have significant health risk from ingestion/exposure. Perhaps it would also be a requirement for making labels prominent like the Californian ones.

It also comes across as something akin to the issuance of building/mechanical codes in construction that someone is a “competent person”. Honestly its more of a formality until shit hits the fan and somebody needs to get thrown under the bus when something goes sideways and a justification for a bureaucratic job.

[sundancer 43057xp 0]

And another company is added to the “will not send” List: Ramshackle Games put this out last night:

Ramshackle Games will not be sending orders to the EU for a while! From the 28th I will not be taking any orders from the EU. New safety regulations are coming in for retailers selling to the EU market. These start on the 13th of December, just in time for the xmas postal rush. This will inevitably lead to a higher rate of packages refused at customs, and as I cover resending orders, it will cost a fair amount! I will need to find a representative in the EU too, which should cost somewhere between £30 and £60per month. I also need to change my packaging to include more safety info and details like product code and batch number. This will be a bit of a change, and as I’m going to be busy this month I thought it best to aim for being complaint early next year.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/RamshackleGames/posts/pfbid031XVp2aiS4WRSBxuc4on1y2eMs8cap8wyoPKXCimFnaWPf82myiaxa3H5uTq5er9bl

[wolfie65Participant 1240xp 0]

Another good one is ‘do not place in microwave’ on disposable lighters.

Ultimately, the end goal is to annihilate small, independent business altogether and make mega giants such as SlimeAzon and FEMA-Mart (formerly known as Walmart) the ONLY places where you can buy ANYTHING – from a stick of gum to a car….

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