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Post by peachiceteas on Dec 29, 2020 10:39:10 GMT
Just when we thought 2020 couldn't get any worse - we've been hit with another Brexit related bombshell. I don't completely understand what is going on - I don't know what will effect only UK peas, and what will effect EU peas. From what information I have, it looks like a Brexit related system goes into effect January 1st 2021, and an EU e-commerce tax later in the year. I am hoping we can use this thread to update eachother, keep track of the shops that are not longer selling or shipping to the UK/EU, and be a support to eachother in what could be a really rocky time for our craft. So far I am aware of; (last update: 12th August 2021) - Feed Your Craft - no longer shipping physical product or selling digitals outside of USA and Canada
- Citrus Twist - no longer shipping physical product or selling digitals to the UK
- Cocoa Daisy - no longer shipping or selling to the UK
- In a Creative Bubble - no longer selling digitals to UK addresses or Canada
- Franticstamper - no longer shipping or selling to the UK
- Kerri Bradford - no longer shipping or selling to the UK
- Colorcast Designs - no longer shipping or selling to the UK
- Paper Person - no longer shipping or selling to the UK and EU
- Everyday Explorers Co. - selling and shipping to the UK but orders must be above $185
Please add to the thread as we become aware of more shops... I would love to say that is the complete list but absolutely not feeling hopeful at this point.
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Post by sleepingbooty on Dec 29, 2020 10:56:34 GMT
Oh great, the Instant Depression in a Thread™ I didn't know I needed... Seriously, US e-commerce vendors can figure out how to charge sales tax for all 50 states but oh my, oh no, the horror of registering for the UK and EU VAT. Everything's fine. I'm fine.
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Post by peachiceteas on Dec 29, 2020 11:00:43 GMT
sleepingbooty Could not agree more. My anxiety absolutely needed something else to raise it some more. We're totally calm over here and not running around the house in blind panic.
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Post by sleepingbooty on Dec 29, 2020 11:19:08 GMT
sleepingbooty Could not agree more. My anxiety absolutely needed something else to raise it some more. We're totally calm over here and not running around the house in blind panic. Time to get really good at Photoshop and find ourselves a decent printer (sorry, couple of printers because Brexit *heavy sigh*)... Wanna bet how much the irony will be that Inked will properly register for both? All UK and EU scrappers right now:
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Post by peachiceteas on Dec 29, 2020 11:34:21 GMT
Time to get really good at Photoshop and find ourselves a decent printer (sorry, couple of printers because Brexit *heavy sigh*)... Wanna bet how much the irony will be that Inked will properly register for both? Oh yes! I have design skills and connections! I've just never really wanted to use them for this because I use them all day for work and being able to purchase supplies that appealed to my aesthetic was a relief. It made scrapbooking fun rather than an extension of work. Maybe 2021 will be a year of new business ventures! I will hold off saying a bad word about Inked if they have got their shit together for this... it would make an awful lot of business sense as they would ultimately have the monopoly on scrapbooking supplies for Europe! All of a sudden I will be SC and AE's biggest fan 🤣
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Post by glenys on Dec 29, 2020 13:09:06 GMT
I’m a bit disappointed about FYC. I’m in Australia and there are no tax changes here, but we’ve been cut off too...
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Post by glenys on Dec 29, 2020 13:09:57 GMT
Time to get really good at Photoshop and find ourselves a decent printer (sorry, couple of printers because Brexit *heavy sigh*)... Wanna bet how much the irony will be that Inked will properly register for both? Oh yes! I have design skills and connections! I've just never really wanted to use them for this because I use them all day for work and being able to purchase supplies that appealed to my aesthetic was a relief. It made scrapbooking fun rather than an extension of work. Maybe 2021 will be a year of new business ventures! I will hold off saying a bad word about Inked if they have got their shit together for this... it would make an awful lot of business sense as they would ultimately have the monopoly on scrapbooking supplies for Europe! All of a sudden I will be SC and AE's biggest fan 🤣 They probably haven’t even realised it’s a thing yet...
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Post by peachiceteas on Dec 29, 2020 13:12:51 GMT
I’m a bit disappointed about FYC. I’m in Australia and there are no tax changes here, but we’ve been cut off too... I am disappointed for you guys too. Although I can't imagine it will be long before she starts shipping back to you again. Sounds like they have either decided they don't want to deal with international shipping anymore or panicked a bit and disabled everything outside of North America and it wasn't really necessary.
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Post by peachiceteas on Dec 29, 2020 13:14:14 GMT
Oh yes! I have design skills and connections! I've just never really wanted to use them for this because I use them all day for work and being able to purchase supplies that appealed to my aesthetic was a relief. It made scrapbooking fun rather than an extension of work. Maybe 2021 will be a year of new business ventures! I will hold off saying a bad word about Inked if they have got their shit together for this... it would make an awful lot of business sense as they would ultimately have the monopoly on scrapbooking supplies for Europe! All of a sudden I will be SC and AE's biggest fan 🤣 They probably haven’t even realised it’s a thing yet... That is definitely a possibility
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basketdiva
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,615
Jun 26, 2014 11:45:09 GMT
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Post by basketdiva on Dec 29, 2020 16:32:48 GMT
franticstamper will no longer ship to the UK. They are a small company 4-5 employees and it's too much additional work for them.
Per their website: ***As of December 31, 2020, we will NO LONGER ship to the UK. New tax collection requirements are too much for our small company to handle.
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Post by peachiceteas on Dec 29, 2020 16:41:43 GMT
franticstamper will no longer ship to the UK. They are a small company 4-5 employees and it's too much additional work for them. Per their website: ***As of December 31, 2020, we will NO LONGER ship to the UK. New tax collection requirements are too much for our small company to handle. Thank you. I will add it to the list.
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Post by Skellinton on Dec 29, 2020 16:59:05 GMT
Oh great, the Instant Depression in a Thread™ I didn't know I needed... Seriously, US e-commerce vendors can figure out how to charge sales tax for all 50 states but oh my, oh no, the horror of registering for the UK and EU VAT. Everything's fine. I'm fine. Well now, not all 50 states have sales tax! I happen to border a non sales tax state and my poor mother looks like a hoarder because I have all manner of shipments delivered to her. Seriously though, I don’t fully understand what is happening, but it sucks rocks for you guys and I am sorry!
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Post by sleepingbooty on Dec 29, 2020 17:18:42 GMT
Seriously, US e-commerce vendors can figure out how to charge sales tax for all 50 states but oh my, oh no, the horror of registering for the UK and EU VAT. Everything's fine. I'm fine. Well now, not all 50 states have sales tax! I happen to border a non sales tax state and my poor mother looks like a hoarder because I have all manner of shipments delivered to her. Seriously though, I don’t fully understand what is happening, but it sucks rocks for you guys and I am sorry! Excuse our socialist ways for having VAT in all EU countries (we're rude like that). What happened is that the European representatives voted years ago to implement a sales tax-collecting system due to the loss in collection because of international (non-EU) e-commerce the EU is suffering. It was estimated at the time around 5 billion € per year (6.13 billion US dollars). It has gone up since, especially in this pandemic year. To do this, a simple system was put in place where businesses from other countries that are not implemented in the EU have to simply file for a registration and collect tax directly from their EU customers which they then proceed to send back to the EU countries. Like it's happening in the US for the socialist-adjacent states. This is a system that has been communicated about for a while now so that vendors could prepare. It goes into effect on July 1st 2021 and I believe they started encouragining non-EU vendors to register in 2019. That's 18 months of margin, should be plenty enough. With Brexit happening, the UK would suddenly no longer fall under this change in system (which they voted for as they were EU members at the time). So they quickly came up with a similar system that goes into effect on January 1st. I understand this extra and sudden chaos would cause vendors to back away from selling to UK customers until they can get this sorted internally (it requires registration + updating the system to handle the VAT collection for UK sales). But all in all, it looks more like scrappy businesses are forgoing the whole process altogether now and just giving the middle finger to UK and EU clients. Some, like FYC, have decided to simply cut off ALL internationals besides Canadians which is just bonkers. Expect the rest of the world to follow through with registration + direct sales tax collection. It's the way forward with the ever increasing importance of global e-commerce sales. I don't get why vendors are being stubborn about this since they had plenty of warning in advance to prepare for this change. Also, no more duty collection with heavy administrative fees for their customers which should automatically push some of them into buying more since the risk of getting slapped with 20€ in collection fees (on top of the actual VAT) will disappear. Anyhoo, inner Grinch unleashed.
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Post by anniefb on Dec 29, 2020 18:08:25 GMT
What bad news to wake up to.
Direct sales tax for international purchases has already come in in New Zealand (and I think Australia has a similar system). Previously, only higher value purchases were stopped and you had to pay GST (15%). From December 2019 a new requirement was brought in that overseas retailers selling digital or physical products and earning more than $60,000 a year from New Zealand shoppers have to collect GST at the point of sale. So the bigger companies like Amazon, Etsy and Ali Express already do this. A lot of smaller sellers don't though - and sometimes parcels are stopped and GST is collected at the border and sometimes they just get through.
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Post by anniefb on Dec 29, 2020 18:30:44 GMT
I’m a bit disappointed about FYC. I’m in Australia and there are no tax changes here, but we’ve been cut off too... glenys it won't help with digital product but you could check out the ShopMate service that Aus Post offers for a US address - FYC's announcement said that parcel forwarding services won't be affected. New Zealand Post offers a similar service from the US and UK which I use a bit. shopmate.auspost.com.au
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Post by peachiceteas on Dec 29, 2020 21:18:41 GMT
I have been doing some research and found this on the Gov.uk website:
What a UK customer is Whether the sale is to a ‘UK customer’ will be determined by whether the final customer’s delivery address for the goods is in the UK, irrespective of the customer’s billing address.
So this means you can legally purchase digitals from the US and use any delivery address outside of the U.K.
As there is no physical item to be delivered, you can use any address in the world I guess.
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pancakes
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,993
Feb 4, 2015 6:49:53 GMT
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Post by pancakes on Dec 30, 2020 2:06:47 GMT
From my light Google research, the VAT changes seem more complex than adding a different tax system to your POS.
It sounded like you had to categorize each SKU and figure out the right tax code for each one? Are there other things that are making it more complex?
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Post by joblackford on Dec 30, 2020 2:16:31 GMT
ugh ugh ugh! It must be so frustrating that this is affecting digital sales as well. I hope they get this sorted out so you guys can get supplies.
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FurryP
Drama Llama
To pea or not to pea...
Posts: 6,966
Site Supporter
Jun 26, 2014 19:58:26 GMT
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Post by FurryP on Dec 30, 2020 2:28:27 GMT
I'm sorry. This sucks. It was bad enough your shipping prices were over the top, and now this.
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jediannie
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,842
Jun 30, 2014 3:19:06 GMT
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Post by jediannie on Dec 30, 2020 2:38:14 GMT
I was just thinking, what's stopping one of us US people buying digitals for the friends across the ponds and then us emailing those digital files to them?
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Post by Eddie-n-Harley on Dec 30, 2020 3:02:14 GMT
I was just thinking, what's stopping one of us US people buying digitals for the friends across the ponds and then us emailing those digital files to them? Techically, I think it amounts to a copyright violation. If I purchase a digital file at, say, etsy, I have to download it to my computer to access it. Sure, I can send it as an email attachment, but it goes as a copy of the file and a copy stays on my computer. Now there are two digital files out there, but only one has been paid for.
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jediannie
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,842
Jun 30, 2014 3:19:06 GMT
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Post by jediannie on Dec 30, 2020 3:28:04 GMT
Techically, I think it amounts to a copyright violation. If I purchase a digital file at, say, etsy, I have to download it to my computer to access it. Sure, I can send it as an email attachment, but it goes as a copy of the file and a copy stays on my computer. Now there are two digital files out there, but only one has been paid for. Yeah, forgot about that pesky little thing. I wouldn't do it because I'm too much of a rule follower but I was just thinking how to help.
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Post by sleepingbooty on Dec 30, 2020 8:07:18 GMT
From my light Google research, the VAT changes seem more complex than adding a different tax system to your POS. It sounded like you had to categorize each SKU and figure out the right tax code for each one? Are there other things that are making it more complex? VAT depends on the category of goods sold. Obviously, if you're selling sanitary pads, books and chocolate biscuits along scrapbooking supplies, you find yourself having to navigate several categories of varying VAT per EU country + UK. But as we all know, that is not the case. Scrapbooking supplies, be it stamps or pattern paper, are all the submitted to the same VAT. A shop like KP or FYC would automatically add all products and codes to the same category. There's nothing to figure out here except the varying VAT percentages per country like is the case currently in the US. It would be standard VAT for all scrapbooking supplies. Italy charges 22% standard, France 20%, Belgium 21%, Croatia 25%, etc. That's what changes. You then need to check yearly if the standard rate has changed or not. For more on the 2020 VAT rates in the EU, here's a comprehensive guide.
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Post by sleepingbooty on Dec 30, 2020 8:16:09 GMT
I was just thinking, what's stopping one of us US people buying digitals for the friends across the ponds and then us emailing those digital files to them? It would be easier for a customer to pretend to be in the US when checking out than for a US customer to help you and transfer a copyrighted file (although the intention is much appreciated). That way, only one person is "in the wrong". Strictly speaking, there is nothing that can be done as long as you're not using a public P2P system that seeds unchecked. Someone is allowed to purchase a file and store it in a cloud for personal use without violating copyright laws. The issue here is that you'd allow a third party (the friend across the pond) to access the cloud to download it. In itself, from a practicial POV, nothing can be done legally as things stand in 2020. It's more a matter of ethics on the other side: the customer across the pond would be evading tax collection on their side as they'd be paying tax elsewhere for a product destined for UK/EU use. peachiceteas Billing address would count as shipping address for digital goods so you're not quite out of the woods yet.
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Post by peachiceteas on Dec 30, 2020 10:09:47 GMT
peachiceteas Billing address would count as shipping address for digital goods so you're not quite out of the woods yet. Is that true for all cases? For example when you check out on IACB, it asks for a shipping address even though nothing is shipped to the address, assumably because it's all built into their system regardless of what you are selling. Same with Studio Calico and Citrus Twist. I assumed that both of those instances, where you are asked for a shipping address, you would be free to purchase providing you use a non-UK address.
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Post by sleepingbooty on Dec 30, 2020 11:10:53 GMT
peachiceteas Billing address would count as shipping address for digital goods so you're not quite out of the woods yet. Is that true for all cases? For example when you check out on IACB, it asks for a shipping address even though nothing is shipped to the address, assumably because it's all built into their system regardless of what you are selling. Same with Studio Calico and Citrus Twist. I assumed that both of those instances, where you are asked for a shipping address, you would be free to purchase providing you use a non-UK address. If an explicit shipping address vs billing address form shows, you're (likely) fine. If not, like with many digital goods platforms, you're stuck. It's really touch and go at this stage.
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Post by peachiceteas on Dec 30, 2020 11:29:42 GMT
Is that true for all cases? For example when you check out on IACB, it asks for a shipping address even though nothing is shipped to the address, assumably because it's all built into their system regardless of what you are selling. Same with Studio Calico and Citrus Twist. I assumed that both of those instances, where you are asked for a shipping address, you would be free to purchase providing you use a non-UK address. If an explicit shipping address vs billing address form shows, you're (likely) fine. If not, like with many digital goods platforms, you're stuck. It's really touch and go at this stage. It is definitely going to be trial and error for a bit!
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Post by scrappyem on Dec 30, 2020 12:56:57 GMT
This seems crazy to me to just abandon a bunch of paying customers, and potential future customers, instead of learning to navigate the new system. There's got to be CRM/accounting software that is going to help small businesses manage this.
This sucks for all of you ladies. I'm sorry. I hope it gets worked out in the coming months.
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Post by elegantsufficiency on Dec 30, 2020 22:33:50 GMT
I just came across this little surprise when I read IACB's blog post. Hmmm. The fun just keeps on coming, doesn't it? scrappyem you expressed my thoughts perfectly...except I added "OK, so I'll use Photoshop and make my own". Except I know I can't really be bothered. Now, how badly do I need (want) those products? Grrrr. Lucky business owners who can afford to abandon their international customers, eh?
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Post by scrappydo on Dec 31, 2020 0:08:47 GMT
Just when we thought 2020 couldn't get any worse - we've been hit with another Brexit related bombshell. I don't completely understand what is going on - I don't know what will effect only UK peas, and what will effect EU peas. From what information I have, it looks like a Brexit related system goes into effect January 1st 2021, and an EU e-commerce tax later in the year. I am hoping we can use this thread to update eachother, keep track of the shops that are not longer selling or shipping to the UK/EU, and be a support to eachother in what could be a really rocky time for our craft. So far I am aware of; (last update: 29 Dec 5pm) - Feed Your Craft - no longer shipping physical product or selling digitals outside of USA and Canada
- Citrus Twist - no longer shipping physical product or selling digitals to the UK
- Cocoa Daisy - no longer shipping or selling to the UK
- In a Creative Bubble - no longer selling digitals to UK addresses
- Franticstamper - no longer shipping or selling to the UK
Please add to the thread as we become aware of more shops... I would love to say that is the complete list but absolutely not feeling hopeful at this point. Wait.... what??! Some of these shops are not selling internationally because of UK taxes??? Shite, there's a lot to be thankful about living in the Sth Pacific... but getting hold of scrappy products is becoming harder and harder!!!!
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