Hinter den Türen des YiffyToys Shops.
With the new year, the reduced VAT rate of 16% will return to it’s usual 19%.
Therefore we will soon have to cancel and refund all orders made with 16% that can not longer be shipped (e.g. because they are not yet payed) this year.
We plan to make the required changed to our shop settings, invoice printing and our Amazon presence in two days.
This blog posting will be constantly updated to reflect the current situation.
The following manufacturers are in the EU and thus free from customs (but not VAT):
Bad Wolf
FlurbMe
FurryStyle
GLC
Lizard Lars
Sidewinder Creations
According to a policy document of HMRC, above 135 GBP the customer pays the 20% UK VAT along with the customs fees. Either to the customs office or to the postal service (if the postal services did the paperwork in your name). This is not part of Brexit but a change in the VAT rules made by HMRC.
TL:DR: This requires heavy modifications to our software and processes. Mostly because of the currencies. It is likely that we will just require a minimum order to be 135 GBP.
Doing that will require a modiciation to the shop software to allow for a minimum order quantity to be country-specific.
Below 135 GBP, we would be required to pay the VAT. However doing that is not exactly easy.
https://www.bmu.de/faqs/plastiktueten-verbot/
It was fun to have people waiting for an elevator or crossing the lobby with such a bag.
We are sitting on a large number of our suspiciously unsuspicious black plastic bags.
You can’t buy them in small quantities and still pay a reasonable price. So the plan was to use them over 3-4 years of Dealers Den. Just like we did with our last stash of bags and the one before.
Sadly in 6 month (so next Eurofurence) we will no longer be able to use them since they are less then 50µm thick and thus don’t fall under one of the exceptions for the new ban on plastic bags.
We’re still waiting for the law to be actually passed and then to read the exact wording used.
We have already posted the technical details we where given by DHL and Amazon and the steps we will take regarding Brexit recently.
Given the deadline getting closer, we urge everyone from the UK who intends to order any toys from our store, please to do so no later then next week. Even if there is a delay, there is likely to be at least some chaos after that date. Wheels are already in motion everwhere around us even if the Brexit itself may or may not be postponed for a few weeks or a few month or a year.
Banks, credit cards, Paypal, DHL, Royal Mail, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de delivering to the UK, widely fluctuating GBP/EUR exchange rates,… there are a lot of external entities we have to rely on to conduct business and everyone of them prefers to be on the safe side even if it means turning down business for a weeks or two or suddenly making their service more expensive.
Thank you.
We are currently switching bank accounts.
New orders paying by SEPA bank transfer will already retrieve the new account details for their payment.
The old account will still remain valid for a few weeks.
This should be plenty of time for the very few bank transfer -orders in the shop that have not payed yet. (*)
While being quite an ordeal for a privat bank account, such a switch is a bit more involved when it’s about a company account. Over the past few weeks we have set in motion most of the paperwork involved (including customs- and tax offices) and so far the transition seems to run smoothly.
The advantage for you: SEPA bank transfer payments arrive within a day instead of 2-3 days now. (With Commerzbank, they didn’t become visible in online banking until some time later. Thus we could not ship as quickly as would be otherwise possible.)
The advantage for us: In the end we’ll even pay much less fees. Up to now our Aval for a simplified customs process was quite expensive and every customer paying by SEPA bank transfer would cost us about 0,15€ in addition to a monthly fee. While not free (Company bank accounts that include cash handling and a Maestro card are not) this is now much cheaper and the SEPA payment fees are gone up to a very comfortable monthly limit.
Based on how they handle very long time customers (we’re talking decades here).
Not just one or two or a dozen or 3 dozen customers.
We’re talking thousands. Whole families, businesses, entire diplomatic embassies.
People in good and very good standing. People being granted the elevated „First“ status by this bank. Not only free accounts that never run up any overdraft or loan interest and thus don’t make their bank much money. Even business customers who pay considerable banking fees every month, heavy hidden fees in exchange rates and quite hefty fees for business services such as an Aval or business SEPA debit mandates.
We can not recommend anyone to choose this bank and to leave there while you still can. In case you are with them, here are some sources you should seriously consider:
NDR „Der Mark“
NDR „Panorama“
FAZ
Der Westen (Funke Media Group)
Osttüringer Zeitung
DW Akademie
Hamburger Morgenpost
Comdirect User Forum (1) (2)
Trustpilot
There is a reason they need to advertise a staggering 100eur for new customers there (any seemingly very often not paying that). Think about it!
This is separate from their terrible standing with being thrown out of the DAX index .
As as result 7300 employees where let loose. 4210 of them in corporate banking. In the medium sized business support this ment 50% of staff in southern Germany and 40% in northern Germany. (Handelsblatt late 2017)
This ment unreachable/bad and constantly changing business customer service representatives (1) including ours. We’re not going into details about our own experiences there due to internal details. TL:DR: All business service stopped after late 2018 and it seems all good customer service staff have left on their own for better banks even before the layoffs.
FAZ
Der Westen (Funke Media Group)
Osttüringer Zeitung
DW Akademie
Hamburger Morgenpost
Comdirect User Forum (1) (2)
Trustpilot
There is a reason they need to advertise a staggering 100eur for new customers there (any seemingly very often not paying that). Think about it!
This is separate from their terrible standing with being thrown out of the DAX index .
As as result 7300 employees where let loose. 4210 of them in corporate banking. In the medium sized business support this ment 50% of staff in southern Germany and 40% in northern Germany. (Handelsblatt late 2017)
This ment unreachable/bad and constantly changing business customer service representatives (1) including ours. We’re not going into details about our own experiences there due to internal details. TL:DR: All business service stopped after late 2018 and it seems all good customer service staff have left on their own for better banks even before the layoffs.
*) Given that orders with payment by SEPA bank transfer that still haven’t payed a week after get a gentle reminder with the bank details and after multiple weeks and reminders must get canceled anyway so as not to block toy-inventory that other people would like to buy.)
Yes, none of us can hear it anymore but the date of a possible „hard Brexit“ is creeping nearer. We will update this blog posting as more information arrives from our the companies who’s services we use.
A week before the possible hard Brexit (22.3.2019) we will deactivate our presence on Amazon.co.uk until is becomes clear how this is to continue.
Amazon is urging is to stockpile our products in their UK warehouse but we are too small and our UK sales too irregular to do that. We need our stock right here for our many EU customers.
Starting 26.3.2019 DHL requires us to add details customs documentation to all packages for destinations within the UK, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
Delivery times for these destinations can not be guaranteed by DHL and thus also not by us.
In Case of a hard Brexit, DHL will start requiring an additional „Brexit Fee“ starting on the 2019-04-01 „or later“ for the handling. We will add that to the shipping price unaltered. The fee is an additional 10.29€ .
Aufgrund der aktuellen Nachrichten, daß Adobe gerade Magento gekauft hat und als Shopping-Komponente in seine „Experience Cloud“ -Platform an Marketing Werkzeugen integrieren will:
Wir nutzen nicht das bei Magento (und damit jetzt Adobe) gehostete Magento Enterprise.
Wir hosten die Magento Shop -Software, dieses Blog, unsere Email-Server und den Email-Verteiler komplett autark auf unserer eigenen Server-Hardware. Auch die (online und offline) Backups sind auf eigener Hardware.
Niemand außer uns hat auf die Daten Zugriff. Keine Cloude-Dienste, kein Cloud-Backup, kein Webmail eines Fremdanbieters. Adobe sieht von unserem Shop oder gar den Kundendaten nie etwas.
Wir müssen leider vorübergehend alle Vibrationen und sonstige elektrischen „Geräte“ aus dem Shop entfernen, da europaweit die Umsetzungen der nationalen Gesetze zur Umsetzung der „WEEE2“ Richtlinie zur Entsorgung von Elektrogeräten in Kraft treten.
Die Umsetzung in Deutschland durch das ElektroG2 ist für uns kein Problem. Schon weil wir schon durch die Verpackungsverordnung an ein deutschlandweites Entsorgungs-System angeschlossen sind.
(Juris hat noch eine veraltete Version des ElektroG, ohne die Klausel welche kleine Händler von der Entsorgungspflicht ausnimmt.)
Diverse Länder wie Österreich und Belgien fordern aber die Benennung eines im Land ansässigen Bevollmächtigten von Händlern, welche nach Österreich verschicken.
Erste deutsche Händler werden bereits aus Österreich abgemahnt.
Hier müssen wir also zunächst die neue Rechtslage in ALLEN europäischen Ländern prüfen.
(Was durch die verschiedenen Sprachen nicht unbedingt erleichtert wird.)
Da wir Produkte im Shop derzeit nicht nur in einem Teil der Länder anbieten können,
müssen wir sie ganz deaktivieren. Dies betrifft mehrere per USB ladbare Vibratoren und die Vibratoren für das XRector System von FurryStyle. Vermutlich können wir diese zeitnah wieder aktivieren, wenn sichergestellt ist, daß wir als Händler nicht in den jeweiligen Gesetzen mit einem Hersteller gleichgesetzt werden und für welche Produkte dies gilt.
http://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/post-streik-129.html
Gute Neuigkeiten!
Der Streik der Post (Briefe und Päckchen) endet am Dienstag.
Wir verschicken und empfangen hautsächlich Pakete, damit waren wir nur für
einige als Brief verschickte Werkzeuge und natürlich Rechnungen, Zoll-Mitteilungen,…
betroffen aber eben nicht im Versand.
Wie
Heise berichtet liegt ein sehr interessanter Gesetzentwurf vor,
welcher nicht nur die Abmahnkosten gegenüber privaten Urheberrechts-Vorwürfen senken soll sondern auch gegenüber kleinen Online-Händlern bei wenig bedeutsamen Problemen in den AGB oder in der Einhaltung der PreisAngabenVerordnung.
Solche Dinge passieren schnell mal, wenn man keine große Firma mit eigener Rechtsabteilung hat.