Deliveries to Northern Ireland

[WilsonMilson]

Just a rant really.

Getting a bit fed up with companies who’ve decided to stop (temporarily or permanently - who knows) delivery to Northern Ireland, or who have limited the things they can deliver to NI.

Since the Brexit deal, so far this week I cannot order from M&S, Debenhams have stopped NI delivery and now Amazon won’t sell alcohol, perfumes or aftershaves for delivery in NI. And I cannot get a home office chair for love nor money to be delivered from any bloody where.

This is all I’ve seen so far. I’m sure there must be more as I’ve not really shopped much. It’s incredibly frustrating to be so disadvantaged comparing to the mainland.

I live in Northern Ireland, define myself as British and have neighbours and friends who define as Irish or Northern Irish. Some would say they live in Londonderry, others say they live in Derry. Some refer to the North, others to Northern Ireland. None of these are serious issues and simply remind us that we have to accommodate all views and I've sat in hundreds of perfectly amicable meetings where these different terms have been used but business is done.I refer to the mainland and see no reason why I shouldn't.
The original poster made a serious point re access to goods. We've been discriminated against for years in terms of additional postage premiums etc and hopefully the Brexit issues will resolve themselves but I doubt it. I placed a furniture order with Dunelm in November, part of it was delivered before Christmas. The remainder of it was to be delivered after Christmas but has been cancelled and reimbursed to my card. I've no doubt we've been shafted as usual. Where it will get interesting is that many of these firms have invested heavily in NI. Will shoppers want to use them if they only fulfill part orders, it certainly wouldn't inspire any loyalty in a customer if we can't access the larger furniture orders for example.
The reference to shopping in the South is interesting, it's very well accepted to do clothes shopping etc there but deliveries of furniture etc would be very uncommon.

Update - 19.00 on New Years Eve ...

Three-month customs grace period for parcels into Northern Ireland from rest of UK

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/31/three-month-customs-grace-period-for-parcels-into-northern-ireland-from-rest-of-uk

Just hours before the introduction of the trading arrangements, the government announced that customs declarations would not be required for most parcels received by Northern Ireland residents or businesses during a three-month grace period, until 1 April.

A government spokesperson said: “Our IT systems will be fully operational by 1 January. Over the past year we have continued to work with key delivery partners to support preparations for CDS."

The industry does not agree, and given that it is Gove (who has a record for telling untruths and being wrong) who is in charge, I think I know who is better placed to judge what will happen.

[Companies] will also be required to use a new HM Revenue & Customs software, known as the customs declaration system (CDS), which was only delivered at the beginning of December.

“To expect a software company to not only test all those changes but then roll that out to thousands of customers, or [even] hundreds of customers is just not feasible,” said Stephen Bartlett, the chairman of the Association of Freight Software Suppliers.

Normally it would take “at least 12 to 24 months to roll this out to our customers”, Bartlett said

Hav
FFS they are an utter shower of shits who do not understand business
it makes me weep

This could escalate v quickly to the complete fuck up of our economy here in NI.... bad enough individuals faced with being unable to get deliveries, or paying additional delivery costs, but much of our industry (manufacturing) counts on components coming in from GB - is the levy going to be passed to businesses? Bet your life! Are small business going to survive? Probably not! Sorry to sound so dramatic & maybe I'm missing something, but I think think this could be the ruination of the NI economy....

@wannabebetter

From yesterday's papers:

Johnson has refused to accept that his deal will create new barriers to trade with the EU. In an at times bizarre interview with the BBC, he also suggested having to fill out customs forms for the first time could benefit firms exporting to the EU

Johnson and Gove are a pair of dilettante scribblers who between them have the sum total of zero understanding of business, trade or manufacturing - yet here they are, claiming that the UK will prosper mightily (at some undefined point in the distant future) yet unable to guarantee that a parcel or consignment of parts can easily travel from Brighton to Belfast without a crippling weight of paperwork attached to it.

It was the: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Now it is GB and NI for trade.
Brexit is the beginning of the end for the UK.

There is not a single person in the cabinet who has worked in business in a job that involves trade, or international trade. It shows.

There is no way companies can figure out what they are supposed to be doing for trade barriers that they've never had to work with before. Some systems aren't even working yet. 1 week during the Christmas holidays. Get real.

@Tatiana
Exactly my point. Set up the narrative that businesses needed to prepare so it must be businesses that have failed. But the govt have failed.

Whilst I'm pleased to see there will be a 3 month reprieve, the solution less problem of NI/GB customs processing should have been dealt with long long before today.

It's only in the past few years that we have finally been able to get online orders delivered here at a reasonable cost compared with the rest of the UK. And now it is pulled away from us again. People in other parts of the UK often point to the house prices in N Ireland and use them as evidence that the cost of living is low. And yes, house prices are certainly low compared with many parts of the UK. But so are salaries. And then when you add up all the things that are comparatively expensive, like fuel and electricity, food, and deliver charges (which matter a lot in the modern economy where so much shopping is done online) it's not as cheap as it seems. I mean, yes it's obviously cheaper than London, but it's not all about the house prices.

@herethereandeverywhere

A three-month reprieve is welcome, but the experts (remember them -see my post above) reckon that this type of roll-out takes 12-24 months.

This applies to UK-EU trade as much as to NU-rUK trade - the danger being that European importers just say 'Fuck it' and cancel all their orders for British goods, killing off thousands of firms and sending their employees onto the dole queue.

Gove's department was claiming that they have recently recruited over 1,000 new customs agents - which is just a fraction of the 50,000 that were supposed to be recruited, trained and in place working on yet-to-be-developed IT systems by 11pm tonight.

The NI situation is just a small but telling view into what the whole of the UK and NI is about to face - chaos caused by incompetent charlatans attempting to carry out the stupidest idea of the last 100 years.

There is no 'rUK'. It is GB. And always was. All British legislation is all 'the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'
NI has lots of different laws. But now they are really different for trade.

@Havana I'm not disagreeing. The sector I work in has seen particular issues with NI/GB we seem to be able to just file EU stuff as we previously filed 'rest of world' stuff. But perhaps other sectors don't have much 'rest of world' trade or import/export goods that clear customs differently.

Putting the NI > Ireland > GB > Mainland argument aside has anyone found away to get stuff delivered from some of the retailers mentioned above? I'm looking to get a Sainsbury's TU order delivered but can't

Bumping this as I also need a reverse equivalent of parcel motel. I need to have a bulky item sent to an address in Ireland as it is £300 cheaper to buy in euro than GBP (if sending to an address in GB, they are not delivering to Northern Ireland at all at the moment)

Bumping for the Fri evening crew

Seeing similar empty shelves in the Republic of Ireland in mainly UK stores m&s Iceland.
I've closed my amazon prime account they can't promise quick delivery anymore, shut down my ebay account too with the added import charges.
Many small businesses will suffer.

If you follow on Twitter Seamus Leheny
@Freight_NI
He seems to be the only person actually knowing what's going on, and able to explain it simply.

@TableDesk is your order just clothes or does it have homeware/fragile stuff?

It's rubbish, I previously challenged a Not on the High Street seller charging extra postage to NI compared to GB when the cost to her was the same as she was using Royal Mail.
That's small fry compared to the current situation. The people of NI are being so disadvantaged.

I believe many of the UK clothing and sports stores are reducing deliveries to NI as well as food suppliers. The Joy of Brexit.

Potaytocrisps Ive phoned up loads of companies to complain about higher royal mail costs to NI. It was always a big surprise to them that NI was in the UK so got UK postage charges. Ignorance.

This has been pissing me off lately, I couldn't buy loads of stuff in the Christmas sales cause the big companies stopped posting to NI.

Dunelm are delivering again though! Hopefully other bigger retailers follow suit.

@Potaytocrisps - it's literally only a few dresses from TU. Nothing fragile or breakable or awkward... 🙄 I've even asked can they do a store > store internal transfer, but "Computer says no"

People of NI are being seriously disadvantaged once again...