The end for imports of flashlights to EU ? And the rockets?

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. 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.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/04/04/trump_fights_to_fix_shipping_rates_that_favor_china_139960.html#![](":https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/04/04/trump_fights_to_fix_shipping_rates_that_favor_china_139960.html#)

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.

My country is a part of the EU and as such, is obliged to follow some EU rules, including about taxation.
In general personal and corporate income taxes are relatively low here, yes.

You should inform your government about your idea, maybe they’ll agree to try it. Considering the quality of life I observed on my short visit to Helsinki, I’d say they’re doing a pretty good job as it is, imho.

Any one remember the decade long double digit inflation of the 70s? I have to wonder how cheap goods from China has affected this.

But who could foresee people putting their ding-dong in a blender, or in a hoover (without guard) or drying their pet in a micro-wave oven? This won’t be stopped with tighter regulation. Including detailed warnings in a manual might even be interpreted by some people as an invitation: to boldly go where no man has gone before. At the end of the day we can only thank Charles Darwin, and his special award.

At this point we in the EU had taxfree up to 22 euro but most packages just some higher didn’t get the taxes also because it was more expensive to actually charge the taxes. Think 20% over a package of 40,- euro = 8 euro, guy costing 40 euro p/h is busy like 15min. trying to find out real value to tax over and make the actual invoice so the country is actually losing 2 euro.

So this system can only work if the whole world and China in particular would charge the sales-tax at the order but that would be extremely complex for international sellers as every country has different names, tariffs and rules for sales-tax even within the EU. I wonder how they are going to tax even the smallest orders if, say China, wouldn’t comply? It would create new jobs but would not benefit the country’s, it would cost them serious money.

Outsourcing, potentially?
If you look at the incoming mail from Asia to EU countries in the last months (started in January 2021), you can see that someone put a label over the existing label that was done in China.
I am not talking about combined delivery by Aliexpress, that is different. I mean normal packages you buy on any platform, they get either collected or sorted somewhere, and another label is put on it by another company. The shippers’ address is also a new one, local to the country the recipient is in.

You’ll notice if you look at them before and after the New Year.