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Hello,

I have a question about (the second part of) the order I placed on December 12th, 2020, which was only shipped on January 7th (a partial shipment).

What will happen with this shipment? Meaning, will I be forced to pay the extra clearance costs, which is around €15 for any shipment with a worth of over €22, which this partly sent order definitely is? And what about even more extra costs in the form of customs- and import duties??

This is going to affect all of my future purchases in England. If any, to be honest. I might see myself forced to cancel my subscription, because if I will have to pay all of these extra costs on each shipment from Osprey, that simply isn't acceptable (to me, anyway). Far too expensive!
Add to that the fact that you almost always decide to do multiple shipments for single orders, especially in the case of orders where there is a combination of regular books and print on demand items, and this quickly becomes even more expensive, because I will have to pay all of the import related costs for EACH shipment you send me.
These multiple shipments obviously weren't an issue before, but they (possibly) are in the new post-Brexit situation.

Therefor I would like to know what will happen to the partial shipment you sent me on Januari 7th?
If I am to pay all of the extra costs, I will obviously feel greatly cheated, seeing how this concerns an order from way back in december, well BEFORE Brexit! I expected the order to be executed against the cost I have already paid. Not with a bunch of extra, unexpected costs attached!
The combined extra costs could amount to something like €20 or €25 per shipment, plus, the fact that the order won't be delivered and must be collected at some postage pickup point. Which is VERY difficult for me (health issues and RISKS)!

If the above happens, unfortunately, I may be forced to reject the shipment and have it returned to you... then what... :-(((

Can't say that I am happy with your Brexit, like, at all.

Regards,
John

Posted on: 14/01/2021 14:09:29

I have just been notified by someone I know that also ordered from the UK in December and had their shipment sent to them after Januari 1st, and he was also charged additionally with VAT! That means another 21% on top of all of the other charges I mentioned in my initial post.

And, of course, that would mean I would be paying VAT TWICE, since I also paid that when I initially ordered from your shop!

How are you going to deal with this?? Obviously I am NOT going to pay that!

Posted on: 14/01/2021 15:24:49

Just for the record, I have also sent the above texts to Osprey Support, using the contact form.

Posted on: 15/01/2021 11:21:25

Hi John,

Brexit has definitely presented challenges when it comes to shipping into Europe and we are looking into solutions for handling this going forwards. In the meanwhile, however, as you may have seen, we have made the decision to temporarily restrict any further orders being placed for delivery into Europe.

With regards to your specific order query, I do completely the concerns that you have raised. I will look into this now and get back to you ASAP.

Many thanks,

Emily

Posted on: 15/01/2021 14:09:49

Hello Emily,

I'm sorry for sounding a bit upset, but I am pretty disappointed in this whole ordeal with Brexit. I have several orders from different UK suppliers in lingo with this happening.
It seems noone is actually able to get the whole picture atm. Including Mammoth companies like BookDepository (which is Amazon). They also have halted their EU orders and, as far as I can tell, all UK dealers have been deleted from EU Amazon product pages. Just to name a few examples.
I fear nothing good will come of all of this, going forward. The UK has basically killed its competitive position with any and all EU based companies. I mean, f.i., why on Earth would I continue buying books from the UK when I have to add €15 on EVERY shipment (standard clearance costs), plus customs- and import duties.
And then I haven't even started on shipping costs! Which are also subjected to 21% VAT on import, as a matter of fact. A friend of mine (working in transhipment) told me tariffs for shipping a container from the UK to the Netherlands have quadruppled (went from about €2000 to €8000). That's pretty devastating. I can definitely see something similar happening to regular parcel shipments.

I think this is going to hurt a lot of UK companies in all sectors & trading markets. It is definitely hurting me, personally, as I have probably just lost all of my UK suppliers :-(

Anyway... enough of me being sad over what was unavoidable, I guess.

I highly appreciate your effort to try and get some clarity. Thank you so much!
I hope we can get this cleared up (and solved) before the parcel arrives at my doorstep.

Regards,
John

Posted on: 15/01/2021 14:32:36

The problem the m8 is facing is "unjust" and "unfair" 

The long term solution could be a "sister" company in EU, a "free channel" or somehing like that. 

Just hoping there is a fair solution! 

Posted on: 15/01/2021 23:13:09

Hello Destrier13

Thank you for the support!

I think it is an important issue that really needs a permanent solution for all customers that reside in the EU, without (hopefully) too much of a disadvantage for both parties.

What you said makes sense. Warehouses within the EU, even if solely for the shipments. This is pretty much what Amazon does. Amazon has "local" warehouses and they ship products internally from country to country. I am not sure how that works exactly, since these products would still need to pass customs and would therefor be subject to import- & customs duties and VAT. However, at the very least it would avoid the clearance costs from the postal services (that's the costs incurred by handling of the import papers, etc.). That's already at least around €15 in additional costs avoided (in the Netherlands, anyway).

VAT has to be paid no matter what and that was already always the case anyway. So, no changes & problems there.

The only thing then remaining would be the import- & customs duties, for which I know there were provisions in the Brexit deal, which would mean that no duties would need to be paid on trading products between UK & EU. I am not sure if that was retained in the final Brexit deal, but if that is the case, then local warehouses could be the solution to keeping additional costs to a minimum?
A "local warehouse" for Osprey probably wouldn't really need a large office & storage facility with tons of employees (unlike Amazon). A simple postal address with some people to handle the shipments & administration would probably do. It's mostly just paper work and handing the parcels over to the local postal services. But yeah, that would still cost quite a bit of money to set up and maintain. Not sure if something like that is feasible or even interesting enough for Osprey, compared to the financial fallout due to these Brexit issues.

Amazon, of course, is in an entirely different league altogether. They probably have some sort of deal, just like they have for their global tax evasion schemes. Ah well...

Anyway, just spouting some rough ideas. Probably won't help, because I don't have the faintest idea of the situation at Osprey, but at least I'm trying. That's worth something, right? ;-)


On a more serious note, Emily has contacted me earlier this evening, through email, and I must praise her for her effort to get things sorted! Osprey is most definitely working on a long term solution and my issues with the additional costs for this particular order will be solved. So, credit where credit is due! I am convinced they will come up with a working long term solution!

Regards,
John

Posted on: 16/01/2021 00:10:38

I agreed all those comments!

I hope that Osprey publishing finds some kind of solution for the EU problem....

I am already personally pis... of all coming extra expenses and custom formalities for ordering books.

I have purchased the Osprey books form mid 80`s (I have probably about 60 % of all of them) and now is going be back to the old, more expensive and awkward procedure’s....

Tomi

Posted on: 17/01/2021 14:23:49

Hello from "the EU"! 

The new (till March 31st) sale brings up the "EU based customers" problem once more. Being a member and not being able to get a book at ANY price (even not the member-discounted one) is not fair.

Please do something about it asap.

Try to stay safe! 

Thanx!

Posted on: 18/02/2021 18:54:24

Yes, I fully agree with Destrier13!

After receiving the March sale e-mail today, I was actually about to post a follow-up post about it as well.

Back in January, I was in contact with Emily about this. Our last e-mail exchange was on January 22nd.
I didn't want to keep bothering her and everyone else at Osprey Support about it, because that simply isn't useful.
So, that means I also have no further information on this matter at the moment.

..

We, everyone in the EU, have been paying for our memberships for TWO months now, without ANY way of utilizing it, since Osprey has blocked us from ordering anything. So, apart from not being able to make use of the current sale, we can't even use our (paid for) membership at all, in any way. Just like Destrier13 said. I also think that is pretty unfair and kind of hard to swallow for us, don't you think?

I know things will eventually work itself out, and we will be able to order again. But, in the meantime, we are missing out on a bunch of wonderful new (and older!) books. And even sales, apparently  ;-)

I also know (since I have also been in direct contact with many others) pretty much all other UK shops (books and other products) have worked things out by now. The main issue was generally getting the (export-)paperwork for shipments in order, especially since UK shops (read: the main fiscal entity) are now required to have a registered EORI-number, which is a (EU) registration number used to regulate all things customs related (including VAT and import taxes), amongst other things. Since I am on the EU side of exporting and shipping things, I am not entirely sure what the current UK regulations are exactly. But, that's what you have been working on these last few months, right?  :-)

Anyway, I hope Osprey will soon follow, in time for us poor EU chaps to still be able to make use of the sale  ;-)

Be safe!

Kind regards,
John

Posted on: 19/02/2021 00:10:33