So that will lead to the situation where every parcel gets checked.
But then, what happens with all those pocket-rockets without CE sign or obvious non-conformity?
These ugly potlititcians⌠they must be constantly on brainshrinking bad drugs to decide such a nonsense.
But things get better:
A talk with a âfriendâ of the Pole ice revealed, they tend to declare a pocket-rocket as an âimproper weaponâ once found active on public grounds.
I think there is some kind of post-corona damage grazing through peopleâs brains. Galloping stupidity, the new pandemia?
Someone has a lonely remote tropical island to spare?
Or an idea where to claim asylum?
// begin irony
Before the curfew kicks in I have to get out and burn someone down in a glaring shower of brilliant 6500k lightâŚ.letâs see if I finish this work with 3800 China-lumens and a pack of spare batteries at handâŚ
// end irony
The tax situation was announced a long time ago, it was supposed to start on January 1st 2021. Due to Brexit and other reasons it was, however, delayed until July.
I am not entirely up to speed on these things but my friends and family in Europe have been hoarding items for weeks now to avoid a shortfall later this year. All hobby parts, electronics, camera stuff, computer parts, etc - they spent thousands in order to get things before the cut-off date.
edit
EU consumers will have to cough up this much⌠or more.
I guess the Cinese will come up with something like importing the parcels and relabelling them as if they came from inside the EU.
Before they apply such regulations the European businesses should be able to offer the kind of flashlights and price you get in China.
It is smart to import things directly from China because after all most things are produced there. Now the states want to get their share of the money we spend in China.
Aliexpress have invested more than 300M EUR in the Liège airport in Belgium (Guardian ).
And on many products, especially the popular items, you can see an option to buy them from Poland, Spain, Germany, Russia or Czech Republic.
The courier network dealing with the transaction can control this situation perfectly, so they probably found a good solution for consumers already, eg you can just shop as usual and an additional tax will be added when you check out. These funds will automatically transferred to each EU member state.
As always, the niche products and smaller stores may face a challenge.
Yes and the only one which they ship it is Western and Central Europe most of time. For Eastern Europe like my country Bulgaria they didnât ship at all or the shipping cost are to expensive for me. It that situation I need to use local bulgarian warehouse in Germany and after that to ship my orders to my country with that delivery service.
Not much different from what happened in the US when the US states finally got a ruling on sales taxes at the US Supreme Court. Amazon charged state sales taxes for years and finally eBay joined the group about a year ago. The real killer was the change in postal rates between China and the US. I used to be able to buy small electronics and bike parts from China for as little as 75 cents postpaid, Now the same item that cost 99 cents sells for over $2 and you add 8% sales tax to that.
I think mostly consumers will be upset that products are going to cost more than before and that some purchases from China will be cost prohibitive. It will hurt a smaller hobby like modding flashlights.
This market behavior is equivalent to all key changes, eg
- remember flash sales and 0.01$ items that came up daily or even hourly on Gearbest? Gone after they had millions of daily customers (I bought countless Convoy S2+ for 1.11 $US many years back, including shipping!).
- remember free shipping across all China platforms, on almost all products? Long gone.
remember the early product prices on the big platforms in China, like 2011-2013? They were less than half of what we pay today.
Not even going to mention what ebay was like when they opened to Asian market sellers more than a decade ago, very low prices.
This market move was going to happen at some point anyway, billions of dollars are paid from us through Alipay and paypal to China and the Western governments are not going to just sit there and ignore it.
It is just a shame that smaller parts orders from smaller stores may no longer be worth it after shipping, taxes and handling. I doubt that Aliexpress will make space in their EU warehouses for Kaidomain or Convoy MCPCBs or single bare LEDs.
But maybe there will be a smart solution through Cainiao. Letâs wait and see.
In Italy, everything that could be used to incapacitate another person can be regarded as an âimproper weaponâ, if it is not a gun or a sword, which are âproper weaponsâ, if not âweapon of warâ.
A walking cane, a nail clipper, a garlic fart,⌠it all depends on the creativity of the officer who believes to have divine powers.
It is not the tax itself. That has to be paid, one equal law for all.
It is what comes around, the âadditional feesâ that will make things unreasonable. Nobody really wins in this, only everybody loses money, a hobby, scientific activity, innovation, âŚ. And it builds a monopoly for the big A, who then dictate prices and what we are allowed to buy.
It is another slice cut off the salami, until all freedom and quality of life have disappeared.
> But then, what happens with all those pocket-rockets without CE sign or obvious non-conformity?
Donât buy if they donât comply with EU regulation 2014/30/EU and donât [pretend] to comply with RoHS regulation. Nothing wrong with electromagnetic compatibility. They need to do some tests and stick that CE label somewhere. Most do. At least the sticking part.
It is not only on substances, but also on foolproofability, to protect those nincompoops who enlighten themselves or others unnecessarily.
And yeah, to protect others from these who use a flashlight.
In Europe, the bureaucrats think we are all of their level of intelligence, so in response to their exorbitant paycheck they feel the urge to protect us all from everything, including ourselves and life.
The bureaucrats call it âproduct safetyâ.
â(10) Products which are designed exclusively for professional use but have subsequently migrated to the consumer market should be subject to the requirements of this Directive because they can pose risks to consumer health and safety when used under reasonably foreseeable conditions.â
An example application is 2014/59/EU which can easily be interpreted as well on LEP as on a pocket rocket.
There is nothing evil in a laser, but they prohibit it for everybody, just because a few people were misusing them.
I can see why this might be a problem for things that need to be labeled as âintrinsically safeâ. Or used in potentially hazardous areas depending on the country. Help us understand this. Are cheap little flashlights on your store shelves now labeled with CE? Any flashlights? Are batteries of any type marked with the CE?
2014/59/EU is about credit institutions and investment firms?
2001/95/EC: (Reason 10) A flashlight isnât designed exclusively for professionals. More interesting is (Reason 8), but you can argue that a normal (but bright) lightsource (ex LASER) has no non-obvious risks. Have a look at the sun. Or rather not. People usually wonât, as they wonât expose their eyes to a bright source of light that hurts them before it does any long-term damage.
I compare flashlights to lighters, which are far more dangerous. Thereâs a risk according to reason 8, and the outcome of the risk analysis of some manufacturers is obviously child-resistant ignition. Easy to apply to flashlights, which can be locked-out.
LED flashlights are no HID flashlights that can start fires. It takes really some efffort to start a fire with a LED.
Several manufacturers declare their flashlights to comply with 2014/30/EU. Not sure if a UL-lable is required in the USA regarding electromagnetic compatibility (e.g., the product may be used by people wearing a pacemaker, or close to a medical life support system).
When any Chinese seller shipped an item to the US that weighed less than 4.4 lbs (2 kilos), the Chinese seller got free freight but it was paid by US taxpayers. The Trump administration ended the practice via agreement with China. It has a 5 year phase in period, so itâs still less now to ship lightweight items than it will be in the future.
LOL no. In order for them to ship anything from the EU, they have to import it to the EU first, which means theyâd still have to pay all those taxes. Also, for some reason shipping China~~EU is cheaper than shipping EU~~>EU. So while yes, it would probably be much faster, it definitely wonât be cheaper.