Tomorrow is a dark day for small businesses in the UK

[lostmybuttons]

I run a small business, mostly selling on Etsy. But as of tomorrow, Friday 13th December the introduction of the new GPSR legislation is creating such a huge headache for businesses like mine.

We can no longer sell to the EU or Northern Ireland, without paying for an appointed representative to ensure our products are safe. The cost for this is completely unachievable for most businesses like mine. Obviously, we all want our products to be as safe as possible but is it right that it'll cost me at least £2,000 a year to tell me my paper stationery is safe!!

Our only choice is to stop selling to the EU and Northern Ireland, which is a huge loss in income for those already struggling.

We feel like we are shouting into the void and absolutely no one is listening.

This is compounded by the fact that Etsy refuse to separate Northern Ireland in our shipping settings, so by default we are all breaking the legislation and risking fine of up to £20,000.

All Etsy have advised is to cancel any NI orders, which frankly is terrible customer service.

If there was ever a time to shop independent, your small business friends need you now.

I'm so glad you contributed to this discussion with your own personal experience as a business owner because I've always been astonished too at how many online checkouts are declined as soon as I input the details for where I live. Selling and delivering to NI seems to be something that isn't common for a lot of GB SMEs. I hadn't considered that it might be because RM doesn't offer substantial enough discounts to sellers. Although, I'm not adverse to paying RM full prices for delivery so I'm still not sure why a seller would want a discount if they charge the customer for the cost of delivery. I must not be understanding something.

I've always wondered why SMEs in GB want to charge me £20-£90 to send me something like a filter for my dehumidifier via a courier company rather than use Royal Mail's delivery services (which will likely be calling to my house anyway to drop off other post) 🤷‍♀️

Annoyingly, the online marketplace for both large companies and SMEs in ROI isn't as well developed as that in GB and so I'm not always able to source alternative sellers or alternative products from across the border in the Republic either.

Frankly, it's baffling that I have money that I want desperately to spend on something that I need and no business (either in ROI or GB) wants to take that money (sometimes on a regular basis, cos I'm a loyal customer if I like the service provided).

If you read the full thread you will see @Mum2jenny has already had some not very nice comments made about her inaccurate use of the term UK.

You are the third person ( at least ) just because she should have said GB doesn’t mean she doesn’t appreciate NI is part of the UK

Give her a break fgs , mistakes happen!

It is somewhat amusing that most people would say that they are opposed to child abuse and slave labour, because they are both BAD, but when it comes to getting cheap clothes etc they are prepared to let it slide...
Temu and Shein have been proven to sell items made in forced labour camps, yet not a word of protest from the usual pearl-clutchers.

If they can afford pearls they won’t be shopping from those places anyway.

That’ll be the wear it once and resell on Vinted crowd.

You're right, and we'd still be in the EU if there had been an exam before people were given their ballot paper.

"My father spoke constantly of Komarr's [a planet's] freedom, of the sacrifices we must all make for the freedom of Komarr. He was very big on sacrifices. Human or otherwise. But he never seemed to care much about the freedom of anyone on Komarr." -- Duv Galeni, Brothers In Arms, Lois McMaster Bujold.

As EU nationals, each of us had the freedom to live, work, and travel in 27 other countries, to trade with with the people of 27 other countries. We don't have that now. Brexit got the UK freedom from EU regulations at the cost of the freedom of UK citizens to live in, work in, travel to, and trade freely with 27 other countries.

Glad it wasn't just me going HUH?????

how? What? 🙄

I think there are two things going on but this is just my opinion.

Firstly the idea of next day delivery came long and Amazon nailed that one. Everyone thought they were going to be ditched because of the next day delivery The other is "free" postage, again another thing Amazon nailed (for a while). However a lot of UK customers and to be fair a lot of US customers too, aren't daft enough to think free postage is actually free. They don't actually mind paying for postage as long as it is advertised clearly.

The other is profit margins and cutting corners on customer service. It's a bit extreme to actively shut out parts of your country and people serving overseas just because it might not get there next day and you don't want to use Royal Mail in case the few pennies per order that it costs extra might slightly affect your profit margins. I hate this personally but it is where independants can get a foot in the door on a market because we can't get the larger courier discounts bigger stores get so it doesn;t pay for us to dtich a good customer base.

Customer service is woefully undervalued, it pays in spades so on the one hand it boils my blood that people get poor service. On the other, it helps me make an income because as you say good customer service begets customer loyalty

Yes, but you now to jump through hoops to prove to EU countries' customs officials that your product is up to EU safety regs. You didn't have to do that before.

I sell on Etsy and had no idea about this

Then you & the poster that said it was racist needs to understand the origin. It has nothing to do with colour of skin. 🙄🙄

What was not very nice about the comments? They pointed out that NI was part of UK?? Like how would you sugarcoat that? Oh hon, lots of people don't realise NI is part of the UK?? Seriously?

It was quite clear in the aftermath of Brexit that most of Great Britain did not actually realise the impact NI would have on brexit and didn't quite understand that NI was part of the UK. It is quite clear reading MN that most of Great Britain still don't realise that.

Nor did they understand that the troubles was a civil war raging on UK territory - the longest civil war in UK history - It was NOT on Irish territory. This was a UK civil war.

Do I have to cancel orders I already have for the EU & NI, or can I ship them as they were purchased prior to the deadline?

I've no idea how I missed this 🤦🏻‍♀️

They're including digital products too? How bizarre!

But we did do that before, because there were safety regs to comply with anyway from any laws we had at the time and now whether they were UK or EU, and so there should be.

We've had consumer protection laws of some form of another since the 1300s in the UK starting with hallmarking. The punishments for non-compliance were harsher then. Business regs are nothing new.

I am only talking about complying with the laws required to remain in business and nothing else. My point here is that we always have changing or new regulations, we just have to deal with them when they come along. People don't like change there is always a painful period of transition when regs change, part of the job of being in business.

I said
just because she used the wrong terms ie mixed up GB and UK
She has already been pulled up on that so I don’t see the point of MNs constantly repeating it
I haven’t seen anything on MN that suggests people don’t realise NI is part of the UK but I’ll take your word for it. I assure you as I’m from Derry I’m fully aware

How is reducing your available market going to be beneficial.
and Northern Ireland is in uk.

If you can demonstrate that your supplier of things like paper, ink, any glues are safe is that good enough? This seems odd since you don’t seem to be selling anything that is consumable or that is likely to be off-gassing anything dangerous.

FYI whilst I agree it's unfair, it's not inexplicable that marketplaces like Etsy are refusing to separate NI. It's unlikely to be a small change from a technology perspective. They have had 2 (?) years to get this done, so not having it done isn't great but it's likely the impact wasn't picked up until late on or they've taken the view that most people will continue to sell to NI/ no one will be fining for small sellers for offering to NI and then cancelling (and they're willing to take the customer impact). I suspect they will eventually change and it might even already be in the works.

Note I don't work for Etsy so have no insider knowledge, just wanted to comment because I don't think it's inexplicable. OP is still (unfairly) screwed.

Because they didn't care about any of this when Brexit was discussed. It was about winning and playing populist politics.
People did raise a range of these issues before the vote but were told we were fear mongering

It isn't glee to point out that this is what people voted for. It's sheer fucking rage.

And the UK is not suffering at the hands of the EU. Our suffering is entirely of our own making. People were warned of the risks and they dismissed them as Project Fear.

And yes, I agree the Remainers failed to make a positive case to stay in the EU. They focused too much on the damage that would be done if we left. And they made too many assumptions would be able to see through the lies promoted by Vote Leave.

Sadly, voters chose to put their fingers in their ears and ignore the warnings. Now all of us have to live with the consequences of their stupidity. That's democracy.

Not true. All food and drink needs to meet U.K. food safety standards under all trade agreements the U.K. is negotiating.

Etsy only cares about the US, that was always the case and is now crystal clear if anyone ever doubted it.

Yes indeed.

And the UK is not suffering at the hands of the EU. Our suffering is entirely of our own making. People were warned of the risks and they dismissed them as Project Fear.

<<<

This x1000

No one is gleeful

What a stupid thing to suggest.

I sometimes buy from Etsy, and the sellers I buy from make things on the side, they don't make a full time living from it.

The last order I bought,I couldn't see how the maker could be cutting a profit at all on what she creates.

There are some really lovely things on Etsy, and I have to set the filters to ''UK only'' to avoid paying savage import fees.

Brexit has been an unmitigated DISASTER.

I'm sorry, @lostmybuttons - Brexit is utterly shite, and has affected so many of us adversely.