TO all my EU customers, can you please share your experience of Baccus orders arriving with you and details of any extra costs (if any).   I am trying to build a picture of what is happening so that I can offer advice to potential buyers and get an idea of just what the extra costs to my customers will be.

This is not a pro or con Brexit thread - I am sure that my opinion is well known on the subject.  It is purely to gather data.  Off topic posts will be deleted.

I have received 3 parcels from the UK so far this year, all with different results:

1) A Baccus order posted in December that had VAT charged by Baccus - no extra charge;

2) A Chariot Miniatures order for £54.99 where VAT was not charged by Magister Militarium (who own Chariot Miniatures).  I had to pay a small charge at the village post office.  The charge was less than the VAT would have been;

3) A Kernow Model Railway Centre order for £95.63.  Kernow didn't charge VAT as far as I can tell.  I had to complete a form (in Bulgarian) and send it back with printouts of the order that included Kernow's website address.  My wife (who is Bulgarian) had trouble understanding the form, but fortuneately the ladies at the post office helped me.  About a week later I had to pay 55.77 Leva, and pick up the parcel from the post office.  A currency conversion website gave a conversion to £24.62, which  is a little higher than VAT at 20%, but not too bad if you don't do it too often.

My speculation is that the first was let through because it had been posted in 2020.  I don't know whether a change in procedure occurred between Chariot Miniatures and Kernow, or whether the third order triggered some threshold or other.  Alternatively, Bulgarian customs might feel more favourable to wargamers than railway modellers.

My first Pony Wars packs costing 38 pounds arrived in the Netherlands yesterday. No extra charge. An order earlier in the month arrived from Peter Pig for my WotR project. Cost 90+ pounds. I collected at the post office where I had to pay a further 30 Euro.

I'm waiting to see if the smoke clears up. Customs in Canary Islands are a bit of an issue. Buying from Amazon, for example, is nearly impossible as most items wont be sent here. Ebay can be even worse, I had a regrettable incident when i tried to pay for an item but the page wouldn't let me asking me to select another address. Anyway, no cares, it's probably for my own good.

Some delivery companies would refuse to send items here even from within the EU (Finland), but the post office would.

In the olden times a small package such as what I used to buy from Baccus would have been no trouble at all. These days, I'm even considering giving away the minis I already have.

In Belgium we have to pay the VAT based upon the cost of the package.Also for a package up to 150 euro we pay 24 euro costs for customs and post(on top of the normal postal costs) and 32 euro for a package above 150 euro.This means that for smaller orders of let's say 30-60 euros the additional costs are very high in percentage.For larger orders of a few hundred euros this effect is of course less important.Thanks for your concern!

I've yet to receive a package from Baccus, so I can't comment on that yet.

I do want to say that EU delivery servies are somewhat notorious for not being consistent. One of my family members orders on average about 10 packages per week, most of them from the UK, and of those around 30% get delivered to her house without any customs or even VAT charged - a lot of products slip through the cracks. I'd imagine that both Brexit and Covid are making it more likely for people to receive their packages without any added costs to them, and from my understanding that is the fault of the European delivery systems

From my understanding the Netherlands will ask a 21% VAT over the product's cost, the delivery costs within the Netherlands together with around €15 extra parcel costs added for non-EU deliveries, which for small packages could be double the original non-VAT price. Packages over €150 also have to deal with extra import duties although I've yet to figure out how that will exactly apply to the Dutch VAT calculation.

Hi Peter,
On my side I am waiting for my first order from you since Brexit.
It seems the mechanism described by Philhellene in the Netherlands is about the same in France, with a thoretical gap at 100€ rather than 150€.
I will let you know as it arrives.

As I wrote in the other topic, I live in Italy and I just received my order. I had to pay the VAT at Italian rate (22% instead of 20%, little damage, on a 40 euro expense it's 80 cents difference) and 7,50 euro for "postal rights", i.e. italian mail asked me to pay this funds because they collected VAT for Italian state. I asked clarifications at local post office and they said me that these postal rights are fix, so you pay 7,50 euro no matter the size of your order. If rules won't change in the future, from now on it will be more convenient to concentrate our purchases in few bigger orders, rather than several small ones.

I did some research, and found on the website of the italian posts a chart:

https://www.poste.it/costo-sdoganamento-spedizioni-estero.html

Up to 22 euro value there is not tarif duties, no VAT, no handling fees

from 22,01 up to 150 euro there is no tarif duties, YES VAT, and 7,50 handling fees

from 150,01 up to 1000 euro, YES tarif duties, YES VAT, and 7,50 handling fees

over 1000,01 euro, YES tarif duties, YES VAT, and 15,00 handling fees.

Thanks,

Luca

Hi Peter and all,

From French customs site, it seems UK has negociated specific customs arrangements.
VAT is due past 22€, but custom/duty rights are exempted if paperwork (bill or so) specifies the goods are "made in the UK".
Just in case you wuld not be aware of that.
I'm affraid that ultra-micro-orders should become the rule (less than 22€) for EU.
The postage cost rational would be compensated by not having the post company taking it's margin on custom payments (~8€ I guess).
Stupidly administrative, and lot more of shipment hassle and work for Baccus...
Am I wrong ?
Just my 2 cents.