GPSR - Future Problems Selling To EU and NI?

martindow

I came across a discussion elsewhere regarding new general product safety regulations (GPSR) which will affect selling into the EU and Northern Ireland.  Here is Ebay's page regarding this

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sellercentre/global-sales/general-product-safety-regulation

It requires all sellers outside the EU to have a 'responsible person' within the EU.  Large companies can no doubt do this, but small businesses and individual sellers like us can't.  So presumably we will no longer be able to sell many things within the EU and NI when this comes into force.  

It applies to new and used products and although some things such as antiques and collectibles are excluded lots of products will be affected.  Ebay will not show affected items to buyers in the EU and NI if the seller doesn't comply.

Brexit the gift that keeps on giving!

Spoonie_Turtle

The "responsible person" is not quite as bad as it initially sounds:

"The Responsible Person can be one of the following and must be located in the EU or NI:

• The manufacturer 
• An importer, if the manufacturer is not established in the EU or Northern Ireland 
• An authorised representative of the manufacturer
• A  fulfilment service provider if the manufacturer, importer, and authorised representative aren’t based in the EU or NI"

"If the manufacturer isn’t in the EU or NI, how can I identify the Responsible Person?

If you’re a seller, you can contact the manufacturer or your upstream supplier to obtain the name and contact details of the EU or NI-based Responsible Person."

Extra work all round, yes.  But hopefully still doable for small businesses and individuals.

dinosaur66

please note this does not affect private sellers

i am a business seller on ebay - and discogs have 4000 secondhand items on albeit i now do it as a hobby to keep me occupied and do not worry about slow sales or good sales.

i get the messages from ebay daily about this

i do not sell outside the uk now and so it is only northern ireland .

i have read the advice on amazon and they give different advice to ebay /.

my own policy is very technical and thoughtfull / i am going to bury my head in the sand do absolutley nothing and see what happens on december 14th.

i am guessing ebay will force me to block northern ireland but not sure so wait and see.

i have watched the videos of the northern ireland man who sells radios and electrical absolutley frustrated at the lack of clarity and help from his politicians/hmrc/ebay

RFW

dinosaur66 said:

i have read the advice on amazon and they give different advice to ebay /.

 

It depends what you do and scale of selling but I went down the path of registering for VAT across the EU countries. Then the requirements for complying with each country made it prohibitively difficult, so I cut my losses. I still get pestered to sell into the EU from Amazon, each time I tell them it's too difficult, expensive and time consuming. It may be worth it for different types of seller and Amazon keep trying to find ways of making it easier but haven't managed it yet. It rarely gets talked about how difficult changes following Brexit (admittedly not all down to Brexit) have made trading with our former EU partners. EU was never a big market for me but the difference is about the salary of an employee.
The NI side is relatively new and I haven't looked into it too much. I don't sell that much to NI so may have to sideline that too. It is ridiculous that we have to do that for selling within the same country.

dinosaur66

RFW said:

dinosaur66 said:

i have read the advice on amazon and they give different advice to ebay /.

 

It depends what you do and scale of selling but I went down the path of registering for VAT across the EU countries. Then the requirements for complying with each country made it prohibitively difficult, so I cut my losses. I still get pestered to sell into the EU from Amazon, each time I tell them it's too difficult, expensive and time consuming. It may be worth it for different types of seller and Amazon keep trying to find ways of making it easier but haven't managed it yet. It rarely gets talked about how difficult changes following Brexit (admittedly not all down to Brexit) have made trading with our former EU partners. EU was never a big market for me but the difference is about the salary of an employee.
The NI side is relatively new and I haven't looked into it too much. I don't sell that much to NI so may have to sideline that too. It is ridiculous that we have to do that for selling within the same country.

i know / i have never sold on amazon but i used to wholesale my new stock to other wholesalers on ebay and  sellers who sell on both platforms and they told me all the hoops they had to jump through on amazon.

they told me EU made up about 5 % of there sales on amazon and ebay but they have all stopped since brexit from selling outside of the uk.

also the postal increases and increased fees in the last 5 years has made £3 to £6 lines that had a quick turnover not worth stocking IMO

from what i understand about the northern ireland situation / a northern ireland based seller will not be allowed to sell to other buyers in northern ireland without jumping through all the new proposed bells and whistles  which sounds utter madness .

RFW

dinosaur66 said:

they told me EU made up about 5 % of there sales on amazon and ebay but they have all stopped since brexit from selling outside of the uk.

also the postal increases and increased fees in the last 5 years has made £3 to £6 lines that had a quick turnover not worth stocking IMO

from what i understand about the northern ireland situation / a northern ireland based seller will not be allowed to sell to other buyers in northern ireland without jumping through all the new proposed bells and whistles  which sounds utter madness .

I'm about that on the first point. I used to do fairly well in Germany and had a couple of pockets of big sales in Italy, France and Spain. It was something I was working on building on in 2016 but it just fizzled out.

That's me on pricing too. In August 2023 Amazon announced the removal of the small & light programme, so the several pallets I had ordered for Christmas 2023 became unprofitable overnight. I'm still trying to catch up on that. I've been slowly trying to change my entire product range this year, as well as bringing on other marketplaces.

N. Ireland sounds like a crazy situation. I've not read much on it on Amazon but you can generally guarantee that if the law is making it difficult, Amazon will try and make it impossible.

dinosaur66

RFW said:

dinosaur66 said:

they told me EU made up about 5 % of there sales on amazon and ebay but they have all stopped since brexit from selling outside of the uk.

also the postal increases and increased fees in the last 5 years has made £3 to £6 lines that had a quick turnover not worth stocking IMO

from what i understand about the northern ireland situation / a northern ireland based seller will not be allowed to sell to other buyers in northern ireland without jumping through all the new proposed bells and whistles  which sounds utter madness .

I'm about that on the first point. I used to do fairly well in Germany and had a couple of pockets of big sales in Italy, France and Spain. It was something I was working on building on in 2016 but it just fizzled out.

That's me on pricing too. In August 2023 Amazon announced the removal of the small & light programme, so the several pallets I had ordered for Christmas 2023 became unprofitable overnight. I'm still trying to catch up on that. I've been slowly trying to change my entire product range this year, as well as bringing on other marketplaces.

N. Ireland sounds like a crazy situation. I've not read much on it on Amazon but you can generally guarantee that if the law is making it difficult, Amazon will try and make it impossible.

RFW said:

dinosaur66 said:

they told me EU made up about 5 % of there sales on amazon and ebay but they have all stopped since brexit from selling outside of the uk.

also the postal increases and increased fees in the last 5 years has made £3 to £6 lines that had a quick turnover not worth stocking IMO

from what i understand about the northern ireland situation / a northern ireland based seller will not be allowed to sell to other buyers in northern ireland without jumping through all the new proposed bells and whistles  which sounds utter madness .

I'm about that on the first point. I used to do fairly well in Germany and had a couple of pockets of big sales in Italy, France and Spain. It was something I was working on building on in 2016 but it just fizzled out.

That's me on pricing too. In August 2023 Amazon announced the removal of the small & light programme, so the several pallets I had ordered for Christmas 2023 became unprofitable overnight. I'm still trying to catch up on that. I've been slowly trying to change my entire product range this year, as well as bringing on other marketplaces.

N. Ireland sounds like a crazy situation. I've not read much on it on Amazon but you can generally guarantee that if the law is making it difficult, Amazon will try and make it impossible.

copied and pasted

this is what i have read on amazon giving A different perspective

Under GPSR, it's important to look at "the order creation country" not the destination country as order creation country indicates where listing takes place. 

UK is not a part of EU therefore if the order is created on amazon.co.uk and sent to Northern Ireland, that order doesn't need to comply with GPSR. 

If the order has been created in any other Amazon EU Marketplace and sent to NI, those listings will need to comply with GPSR regulations.

this is why i am putting my head in the sand and doing nothing until december 14th / there has been no clarity

although to me this statement does not make sense / why would the EU have internal regulations for inside the EU and let all outsiders post as normal unless it is specific to switzerland /england but i do not see that mentioned

but the northern ireland amazon business seller of radios has said this as well on you tube videos but he is finding it impossibe to tell if it is fact.

RFW

dinosaur66 said:

copied and pasted

this is what i have read on amazon giving A different perspective

Under GPSR, it's important to look at "the order creation country" not the destination country as order creation country indicates where listing takes place. 

UK is not a part of EU therefore if the order is created on amazon.co.uk and sent to Northern Ireland, that order doesn't need to comply with GPSR. 

If the order has been created in any other Amazon EU Marketplace and sent to NI, those listings will need to comply with GPSR regulations.

this is why i am putting my head in the sand and doing nothing until december 14th / there has been no clarity

although to me this statement does not make sense / why would the EU have internal regulations for inside the EU and let all outsiders post as normal unless it is specific to switzerland /england but i do not see that mentioned

but the northern ireland amazon business seller of radios has said this as well on you tube videos but he is finding it impossibe to tell if it is fact.

I don't think there's anything I need to do but this is Amazon so they could do anything. I keep getting messages saying I need to update country of origin on some listings, they never say which. If I'm not selling into the EU it says I don't need to. N.Ireland isn't the EU and they don't mention it. I have about 200 SKUs active but about 2000 that I've created. If you upload a file just trying to update country of origin that can cause a whole load of other problems, so there's no way I'm doing that unless I really have to.

Sarahspangles

Spoonie_Turtle said:

The "responsible person" is not quite as bad as it initially sounds:

"The Responsible Person can be one of the following and must be located in the EU or NI:

• The manufacturer 
• An importer, if the manufacturer is not established in the EU or Northern Ireland 
• An authorised representative of the manufacturer
• A  fulfilment service provider if the manufacturer, importer, and authorised representative aren’t based in the EU or NI"

"If the manufacturer isn’t in the EU or NI, how can I identify the Responsible Person?

If you’re a seller, you can contact the manufacturer or your upstream supplier to obtain the name and contact details of the EU or NI-based Responsible Person."

Extra work all round, yes.  But hopefully still doable for small businesses and individuals.

A small retailer I buy from has grumbled that it’s a further hoop to jump through but a company that currently does their EU tax service (IOSS) is also offering this. I’m sure for some this will be the last straw though.