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 didn’t 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 $2 and you add 8% sales tax to that.
To play devils advocate here, from my perspective in the UK,
1) As much as we all dislike taxes, is it not part of society? (Corruption and mis-spending requires political change, it’s different)
2) Importing virtually unlimited amounts of extremely low cost ‘stuff’ from China is economically and environmentally unsustainable.
3) A (real) CE mark nor RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) compliance isn’t that hard to acheive, is it?
4) I’m not sure what country you’re in, but on what grounds did your friend/the police determine that a bright light was a weapon??
I think mostly consumers will be upset that products are going to cost more than before and that some purchases from China will be cost prohibitive. It will hurt a smaller hobby like modding flashlights.
This market behavior is equivalent to all key changes, eg
- remember flash sales and 0.01$ 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.
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. Let’s wait and see.
In Italy, everything that could be used to incapacitate another person can be regarded as an “improper weapon”, if it is not a gun or a sword, which are “proper weapons”, if not “weapon of war”.
A walking cane, a nail clipper, a garlic fart,… it all depends on the creativity of the officer who believes to have divine powers.
And here we come to the point.
It is not the tax itself. That has to be paid, one equal law for all.
It is what comes around, the “additional fees” that will make things unreasonable. Nobody really wins in this, only everybody loses money, a hobby, scientific activity, innovation, …. 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?
Don’t buy if they don’t comply with EU regulation 2014/30/EU and don’t [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 “product safety”.
Please quote the regulation violated by a ‘rocket’.
2001/95/EC
“(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.”
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 “intrinsically safe”. 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 isn’t 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 won’t, as they won’t 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. There’s 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.
I see no problems complying with 2001/95/EC.
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 it’s 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 they’d 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 won’t be cheaper.
I meant “it won’t be cheaper” compared to today’s system, where you pay 0 taxes on small orders.
They’re not “fixing” it. They just want to tax the imports, as any country does. Importing millions of goods from China without paying anything is not desirable for ANY country.
This is a core functionality of any government and I don’t even know why I’m discussing it.
Should they also stop the tariffs on iPhones, because without them it certainly would be cheaper for you to buy?
I think the large importers get some form of a tax discount, that is the only way I can explain why the local warehouse options are almost as cheap as shipping it from China. As mentioned above, those items on Aliexpress that are “local” are only 1-2$ more.
In a way all large companies do it this way, Apple have their supply chain based in Ireland, the big mobile operators “source” their phones from Luxembourg, real estate holding groups are in tax havens, and I am sure other firms do similar things.