Irish customers buying on Amazon UK
I receive a large number of orders from Irish customers buying on Amazon.co.uk. Since Brexit I have had no end of problems even though I am following all the guidelines but it is costing me an absolute fortune. Customers either refuse to pay the tax or duty so then it comes back to me and i have to pay UPS to deliver the item back but even worse Amazon have started now refunding my customers if they provide a receipt. See below email, I replied saying that all relevant paperwork was completed but the customer then opened an A-Z and won! I’ve already paid the tax and import duty when purchasing my stock and now Amazon are taking the tax and duty from me when I sell it.
Reason for contact: Import fees
Details: Customer has sent us the receipt of import fees which you weren’t declared at the time of purchase .
Please help the customer with import fees he paid.
Please contact the customer ASAP.
To respond to this customer, please reply to this e-mail or visit your seller account at the following link:
Anyone else having these issues?
61 replies
Seller_7VbclcPFFRTnc
Take it you mean Ireland and not Northern Ireland?!
Are these fbm ? If you want to you can remove international shipping from all your shipping templates . That stops non UK buyers from buying on the UK site
However, for your current orders they shouldn’t be paying any extra duties as they should be prepaid
Seller_7VbclcPFFRTnc
@Paul2 if its not too personal - were the orders over €150 ?
Seller_7VbclcPFFRTnc
Sorry but not sure there is any need for the politics !! Its not Facebook!!
Seller_LIlgihPBLM5Pe
I was on a webinar about MFN fulfilment to EU (believe it or not, ROI wasn’t mentioned!). Anyway, the Amazon team were very clear that all Amazon sales need to be DDP (Taxes and Duties paid). There is no get around - and they said failure to do this could / would impact seller ratings.
They acknowledge there are some issues currently.
Royal Mail guys seemed to imply that a DDP option with Royal Mail might be being developed, and available soon!
I sell gloves - some are under the 22EUR limit which means there is no Tax or Duty. Some are over, where there is a VAT implication. The trouble is, as I am sure you have all found out (if you didn’t know already) the cost of a large letter size package to ROI is around £11 - so I can’t see many customers wanting to pay an extra 50% on top of glove price…
@penelope_kennedy1 - I have quite a few packages going to NI - and I have to say, I do feel for you guys - Although luckily for me ShipStation auto completes the CN23, so I am carrying on as normal, I can see some businesses not wanting to supply to NI.
One other complication… What happens if a ROI customer needs an exchange? I’ll tell you what happens, a SHED LOAD of cost.
Deep joy.
Have a great evening fellow sellers, and hope you are all having a great 2021 aside from this bureaucracy!
Cheers
James
Seller_XDzJ9YBdCj3SY
Soooooooo. I take it no one actually knows what the rules are?
Surely if legislation states that there are no customs on goods below the 135/150 threshold or whatever it is then Amazon can’t make up their own rules?
Seller_zLn3YOkGOaTxU
Hi all
There are so many problems with ridiculous refunds on international orders on Amazon that we have given up international shipping here. But for those of you that do have to suffer this, we have been advised that DDP from Royal Mail will be rolled out from February with the product code MTV. They have published the rate card here: https://www.royalmail.com/sites/royalmail.com/files/2020-12/delivered-duties-paid-rate-card-2021.pdf Hope it helps.
Seller_msXOuFgmdtguf
I am a a seller and buyer based in Ireland. The national postal service sends you a text with a link which makes you pay your vat before you can receive the item. From what I gather a lot of people are turning to the DE marketplace where possible. I can’t even get my FBA returns anymore we have to dispose of them as An Post is making us pay vat on items we already own, which doesn’t make sense
Seller_LKjg1QRrO36Yq
It seems to me that all this confusion and uncertainty is unsustainable.
Governments and logisitics organisations will have to do something to sort it out before too long.
The brexit deal was supposed to lead to a seamless transition but it seems to be anything but at the moment.
I’m guessing it’s partly down to failure to legislate properly, partly bureacratic incompetence and partly - perhaps - foot-dragging by elements within the EU who are desperate to make an example of the UK.
Hopefully common sense will prevail and 40 years of relatively easy trade with all the experience and infrastructure that goes with it will not be sabotaged by officious pen pushers.
In addition, the covid crisis is also making it even more difficult than it would/should have been.
