The 1st of July 2021 marked a change on import and export for the world.
Its a bit of a mind field to be honest and as a small business I wasn't sure how it would effect us, however I feel I have now got my head around all the jargon.
A little explanation....
There is a new VAT system called IOSS that applies VAT at checkout for items up to £150, as there is no longer free VAT on items up to £22, VAT is now calculated on all transactions.
Over £150 the IOSS does not apply and is not charged at checkout so this is calculated at your countries border and invoiced to you directly.
So IOSS is effectively collecting your vat charge at checkout and sent to your country of origin, meaning that you aren't surprised with a bill on delivery and parcels won't be held at the border for processing making the process quicker for all.
This also means without IOSS that you could be charged a customs charge and VAT on orders under £150.
Does this effect the UK?
No. This will only effect if your ordering from outside the U.K.
So does this mean you can't purchase GRIP + GLOW?
No. And here is why…
We have contacted an agent to register us in the EU (as we are based in the UK we can't do it ourselves unfortunately), we're not sure how long this process will take so we have temporarily moved all international shipping to a minimum spend of £150 the IOSS threshold on our website
For orders under the £150 threshold we have moved our full range on to our ETSY SITE.
ETSY are effectively the seller as they host our products so IOSS is charged by them and this will keep import costs low for our customers while our agent completes our IOSS registration for direct orders.
So to summarise if you’re ordering from outside the UK we have temporarily moved all orders two are ETSY site, so that you will not incur higher VAT abs customs charges on your orders. If you are placing an order over the £150 threshold you can place your order here as normal on our website.
Our obligation to comply with IOSS is optional and we could keep going as we were, but we feel its unfair for our customers to pay additional costs for their items so we are working hard to get normal ordering in place.
Hopefully this temporary way of placing an International order will keep you stocked with no surprise charges until our agent has completed our registration.
To place an order if you are outside the UK follow this link - https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/GRIPandGLOW?ref=seller-platform-mcnav
We already have some fab International Stockists that are inside the EU -
POLE JUNKIE - www.polejunkie.com - Grips
POLE SPORT SHOP - www.polesportshop.de - Grips and Body Rehab ranges
We will keep you posted and let you know once normal ordering via our website has resumed.
Lisa xx
GRIP + GLOW