I have ordered a flashlight from this company, and they have emailed to say the logistics company needs a UK tax number in order to ship to me. I have never been asked for this before and wondered if anyone else has been through this?
Flavours being outside EU…
Not the first time this happens. It is essentially nothing new, but since Brexit all sensors are on alert.
Companies make deals with countries to charge customers with customs and taxes like VAT. Afterwards these companies pay the collected taxes etc to the country where the customer lives. Both parties consider this a service to the client, who does not have to do anything. Just paying.
This CAN also be done by your customs dept, but they let subcontracters handle their affairs. Which costs you an extra service fee (about €12 in NL).
Other companies explicitely tell their clients that customs and taxes is the client’s responsability. And that they are NOT involved, and that they are not willing to get involved.
And there are companies who tell their customers since Brexit they can’t ship any longer to the UK.
But it is not Brexit related. Because the relation China > UK and China > EU has not changed. Just the relation UK < > EU.
I wouldn’t mind but I got two parcels from AliExpress this morning!
This system of tax collecting via the sellers isn’t up and running right now.
But the change from buying in EU (UK)stores to Chinese stores is deminishing VAT incomes.
And only part of the goods can get picked out to be checked upon by customs.
EU (UK) can do two things: either beef up customs dept’s or ask the sellers to add it to the bill.
Sellers are not too keen because they expect less income as their selling prices go up.
But they are the ones that can calculate the correct VAT etc.
You will have noticed the declared value on parcels involves a great deal of imagination.
So the new and bigger customs departments will face problems estimating the real value.
Today most of the goods come in the oldfashioned way: live and let live, read my lips: no taxes.
But that is going to change.
Until then it appears sellers rather loose their patrons than getting involved in lots of bureaucracy.
They couldn’t ship the order in the end. They are going to refund me. I hope that BG and AE can keep shipping to the UK.
Have you bought from them before? Their website doesn’t give me confidence though their products are interesting.
A huge number of Aliexpress products are now available through a EU warehouse (most of them either in DE, ES, FR, CZ or PL). So there is change happening, large logistics firms like Aliexpress are able to introduce innovation. The issue will be with smaller shops that don’t have the infrastructure to pull this off (eg Kaidomain).
No I hadn’t. I think the problem was with their shipping company. It does seem that the small companies have shipping issues because of Brexit.
Refund offered and accepted. They could not arrange shipping.
never has this issues of ship to UK
Banggood also send at least 2 emails per day, doesn’t matter what settings I use on the site.
But Aliexpress seem very reliable.
this Maeerxu is unheard of, although some products seem interesting.
They’ve been around quite a long time. Search blf and you’ll find them. They started off with the 26650 M8, apparently to try and compete with Emisar lights. Well made, but the ramping UI is a bit wonky, and parasitic drain if you don’t loosen the tail cap to lock it out. Looks like they’ve abandoned the Emisar look, and decided ripping off and counterfeiting boutique flashlight designers like Barrel, and Hanko Machine, was a better business route.
wow, thanks. I didn’t even know any of that. I took a longer break from flashlights and I am slowly getting back into the hobby. This is an interesting brand, just not one you hear in every thread like Convoy or Nitecore.
They are interesting. If anyone has a successful transaction with Maeerxu I hope they’ll report on it.