Kategorie: Legal Topics

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New tariff chaos

[This blog posting will be updated to reflect the latest changes.]

As that Orange Man didn’t understand what VAT is (nor how tariffs work) and thought of it as a tariff he had to counteract,
a 20% tariff on importing anything from the EU (that’s us) to the US will come into effect next Thursday.
Unless that Orange Man decides to postpone it at the last minute like he did few times before,
wreaking havoc on shipping companies who must know what to charge a few weeks in advance.

DHL surcharges

We expect DHL to announce new „crisis surcharges“ today. But at the moment the business-customer website is broken.

EU counter tariffs

According to WHO rules, the EU can issue tariffs in return up to the same height.
They are very good at this and have highly selectively done so for very few goods.
We expect this to happen again and to not have any effect on Silicone or Silicone sex toys imported from the US at this point. However in general Silicone may become more expensive and harder to get, like it did during the COVID-19 epidemic.

Canada shipping

Canadian postal and courier companies are changing their routing to not use the US as much as possible. They have done so in the past, since it was cheaper. This there will likely be delays and higher shipping fees.

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Strike in Italy

We just got a notification from DHL that due to a strike in Italy,
parcels to such customers are delayed but up to 3 days.

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Getting Phishing with our LUCID registration ID

We just got some very well made phishing mails mentioning our LUCID registration ID.
One of them addressed to our email used for Amazon.
Of cause all this information can be scraped from public sources.
The only striking things are,
that the sender was not actually the „Stiftung Zentrale Stelle Verpackungsregister“ but some small trading company who probably had their mail-server misconfigured
and that it comes in October instead of December, when reports and renewals are made.

We do have a recycling contract for our (product+transport) packaging and everything is properly registered with LUCID.

Looks like we are not the only ones.

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GPSR extension written for shop software

General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) will take effect in two month.
It mandates that we display a lot of information about product safety&care and the manufacturer+(EU) importer in the same place as the product details.
Sadly our shop software doesn’t allow for and kind of manufacturer details.
To prepare for it, we have written an extension for our shop software.

There is now an additional tab „Manufacturer“ for all products.
It lists who the original manufacturer is.
It also shows what party is responsible for product safety in the EU
…and it contains a copy of the safety and care instructions we have prepared in English and German.

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GPSR – upgraded packaging

In preparation of the upcoming GPSR regulation in December,
we have changed the our product packaging printing software.

changes made

For imported products the packaging will now also show the full address and email of the manufacturer (in addition to our own company address).
For EU products the barcode label will now also show the full address of the manufacturer,
in case the manufacturer doesn’t already include it in their packaging and for products we have in stock with existing packaging.

Next steps

There will be further modifications needed. Particularly to the online shop software.
We have researched what needs to be done and will start writing a custom extension after returning H-Con.

…first we need a vacation from Eurofurence. 😉

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No shipping to HAITI at the moment

DHL is not longer shipping to HAITI because public order has collapsed.
So in turn we can’t either.

DHL announcement:

Sehr geehrte Kund:innen und Geschäftspartner:innen,

in Haiti ist die öffentliche Ordnung weitgehend zusammengebrochen und angesichts der eskalierenden Gewalt wurde der Ausnahmezustand ausgerufen. 
Daher möchten wir Sie darüber informieren, dass wir in der aktuellen Situation den Versand von Warensendungen nach Haiti bis auf weiteres aussetzen, da wir die Leistungserbringung nicht sicherstellen können.Folgende Vertragsprodukte sind hiervon betroffen und werden ab dem Einliefertag 15.03.2024 wieder an den Absender retourniert: 
…
Wir bitten Sie, in der aktuellen Situation von Nachforschungen Abstand zu nehmen. 

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Updated DHL delivery times in Europe

DHL changed the number of days a parcel from Germany takes to reach it’s destination.
Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Slovakia are not 1 day faster.
As expected, Great Britain takes 1 day longer due to the (long postponed) new customs processing gradually starting in February.

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UK customers should order now. Border delays starting next week.

Starting next week the first new border checks for exports from the EU (where we are) to the UK will start.
At first only affecting a small number of products.

A much larger number of checks will start in April and ramp up until November.
This will slow down border traffic.

As a consequence, we urge UK customers to place planned orders of toys at YiffyToys within the next few days. So they can cross the UK border before all of this starts.
Remember: Everything you can buy in our shop is actually in stock and can be shipped right away.

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Background – Austrian agent for recycling of packaging

Because we have to increase the shipping fees to Austria in order to offset some of the cost of this, we want to give some more background information regarding the Austrian recycling of packaging.

Background

We are a tiny German business.
We pay for the recycling of all cardboard and plastic packaging we ship.
That is not overly expensive and we do so for a long time now.

TL:DR – Austria removed all „small business“ thresholds and requires non-Austrian EU-businesses to name a representative in addition to licensing the packaging for recycling.

Long version

With the Austrian
„Verordnung des Bundesministers für Land- und Forstwirtschaft, Umwelt und Wasserwirtschaft über die Vermeidung und Verwertung von Verpackungsabfällen und bestimmten Warenresten (Verpackungsverordnung 2014)“
(Austria love long names just like Germany does.)
starting 1. Jänner 2023 (1st of January)
we are forced to have an agent in Austria (as defined in § 16b).
That agent is to act as our representative in matters of recyling of packaging.


This is required because of:
„§ 16b.(1) Versandhändler gemäß § 13g Abs. 1 Z 5 AWG 2002 haben für ab dem 1. Jänner 2023 in Österreich in Verkehr gesetzte Verpackungen einen Bevollmächtigten für ausländische Versandhändler zu bestellen.“


That definition reads:
„Versandhändler, die keinen Sitz und keine Niederlassung im örtlichen Geltungsbereich dieses Bundesgesetzes haben und die Verpackungen oder Waren oder Güter in Verpackungen in Österreich an einen privaten Letztverbraucher im Rahmen des Fernabsatzes im Sinne des § 5a KSchG übergeben.“

The naming of that representative even has to be notarised because of
„§ 16b.(1) Abs.2 Pt 4
4. Die Bestellung erfolgt durch eine beglaubigte Vollmacht in deutscher oder englischer Sprache“

Why this law is badly written

There are no provisions for small busineses.
There are no provisions for small amounts of packaging.
There are no distictions between EU and 3rd country businesses.
Yes, that part of the law makes no sense whatsoever.
We are just glad that Austria laws are written in a language we can actually read.
With 27 EU countries, this could be so much worse.