Is anyone selling on Amazon France and Italy sites but are based here in the U.K.? Not FBA

#21

Are you registered in the EU for the ioss? We stopped selling internationally on Amazon for all the same reasons as everyone else. On our website we have stopped selling goods for under the £150 because of the requirement for IOSS number do you have your own? or I guess you use Royal Mails IOSS per item you send? Our website is not compatible with the Royal Mail IOSS boohoo! Sorry for questions but I do often think what other people are doing.

#22

If you sell through a marketplace, they are likely to have registered for IOSS. If so, you just need to assign their IOSS number along with all the normal customs data in the pre-advice to us for the items sold through that marketplace.

Marketplace sellers who sell via Amazon, eBay, Etsy and NotOnTheHighStreet can continue to visit their local Post Office in the normal way. Those customers should declare which of these marketplaces their items were sold on, when presenting them at the Post Office counter, and the Post Office branch will capture this information. The correct marketplace IOSS number will then be allocated to your item by Royal Mail. If you are selling goods on other marketplace places you can use the Royal Mail Click & Drop service – where you will find instructions how to do this.

The above details are found on the Royal Mail website.

Complete the CN22 or CN23 sticker with the relevant information using Amazon IOSS number starting with IM. Also place a sticker which market place the IOSS belongs to such as Market Place AMAZON.
Tax will be deducted at source and if completed correctly there should be no issues and no duty to pay at the point of delivery.

#23

If you sell via marketplaces like amazon, eBay, Etsy etc, you don’t need to register for IOSS separately, as the marketplace will provide the IOSS number, which will be electronically transferred to customs in the recipient’s country (shipping software will do this for you automatically)

If you sell to the EU from your website or through Groupon, for example, then you need to register for IOSS with an accounting firm registered in the EU - Ireland, for example.

We also sell to the EU, especially France and Germany, and those two countries are very easy to deal with, so you should try to get back into those markets.
We stopped selling to Italy and Spain as the constant issues with missing/lost items.

One-stop-shop is easy if you are selling on marketplaces it is expensive and complex when it comes to your own website.

#24

Yes I agree, I keep looking for an easy option but there is not one yet, the ideal one that I found in conjunction with Royal Mail is not compatible with our website server. With Royal Mail it is pay per parcel which is ideal and easily within international shipping costs and does not cost the earth. The most difficult part selling to Europe is trying to block countries that are slow to process parcels from the UK, its all or nothing lol

#25

No you have no need for your own IOSS number at all or register with any accounting firm. Getting a IOSS number is not mandatory.

You send with the old service codes as Delivery Duties Unpaid (DDU). The courier will then ask customer to pay any additional taxes/duties before delivery. This is exactly the same if you are sending to a non-IOSS country like the US for example. Customer may be unhappy as they will have extra fees to pay - just make it clear this is the case in your T&Cs

You could also send Delivery Duties Paid (DDP) where you work out what duties/taxes are payable and pay these upfront on behalf of the customer. You pay the courier these additional fees.

The last option is getting your own IOSS number - but really unless you are doing serious EU international business it is just more hassle than its worth.

When you sell via a marketplace (Amazon etc) then you use their IOSS number as they collect the VAT.

Please read where this is all explained.
https://www.royalmail.com/business/international/guide/delivered-duties-paid-ioss

If your own website orders to the EU are quite low then I would send DDU - least hassle and very easy to implement.

#26

We dropped Italy as the items were occasionally delivered too late, but France is good and only second to Germany. Generally no problems.

#27

If you want to offer a hassle-free experience to your customer, it’s probably the best option to use IOSS for your website sales to the EU.

DDU is not ideal, and we have tried it in the beginning; customers in Germany are charged around €8-10 on our items, as customs add their admin fee of €6 if I recall correctly.

DDP is recommended for items/orders over €150, which doesn’t apply to ours, and they also charge 4% handling, so not sure this would work out better than IOSS.

I agree that IOSS is a paint in the backside, but a must-have if you send a considerable amount to the EU. Customers don’t like paying P&P, never mind the extra fees and import charges, and I would rather make the whole experience seamless than put all these charges on my customer.

#28

Thank you 2adam2,
We will investigate an IOSS for our website, although, it is not the main channel for us.

We like your comment that customers do not like paying P&P.

We have asked Amazon how we sell in an EU country, such as Italy, but ship from here in England. To date, they have not managed to enlighten us, other than suggest we go FBA. (We cannot do this, as we sell personalised items. Of course, we have already told them this in each correspondence).

#29

Thank you Simply_NikNaks1,
Given the small numbers we get from the EU on our website, It looks like DDU will be the way to go.

#30

“We also sell to the EU, especially France and Germany, and those two countries are very easy to deal with, so you should try to get back into those markets.”

May I ask, where are your listings for selling into France and Germany? By this, I mean are they on the specific country site for France or Germany - or are they on the UK Amazon site?

#31

For small amounts of orders from your own website then DDU it is definitely best option. Just make it clear in your T&Cs then if you get a complaint you have something to point to. I use this term:
International customers: Import duties, taxes and charges are not included in the item price or shipping charges. These charges are the customer’s responsibility. Please check with your country’s customs office to determine what these additional costs will be prior to buying. These charges are normally collected by the delivering freight (shipping) company or when you pick the item up – do not confuse them for additional P&P charges. We do not mark merchandise below value on any customs declaration as International government regulations prohibit such behaviour.

You can always expand into DDP or getting your own IOSS number if the number of orders picks up.

The problem came about when we left the EU. Countries outside the EU knew that if they imported an item they would probably have to pay taxes on arrival. When we left the EU then the same principle applied to them - but they had gotten used to being able to order from a seller in the UK and not paying additional fees.

closed #32

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