I’m very sad to say that as it stands, as of 13th December I will no longer be able to sell to EU-based customers. This is because of the new General Product Safety Regulations (GPSR), coming into effect.
This is a devastating blow as I have many lovely and loyal EU customers who I have really enjoyed getting to know. Please read the post below which explains more about this.
Why I’ve had to make this decision
I’ve faced many challenges with selling to the EU and it’s gotten increasingly harder. It started with the digital VAT changes (why I manually email my patterns to you), the licence fee I now need to pay for my packaging in order to ship physical products to Germany, and then the changes to duties that came in a few years ago (which now means I need to send my EU parcels duties unpaid – resulting in a customs charge for you).
Unfortunately this latest directive would require a huge amount of changes to how I run my business – as well as a heap of additional paperwork and expenses that I am just not in a position to be able to achieve!
If you’re a UK-based maker yourself who sells to the EU and you haven’t heard about these changes – then I recommend taking a read of the Folksy blog. It’s the best article I’ve found on the subject and sets things out very clearly.
I’ve held off making an announcement as I wanted to make sure I’d understood it all correctly and I think I have. As you can imgaine the information available is not clear but my understanding is it affects all of my products including digital.
I’m really hopeful that it’s not forever. It’s possible that there will be further clarification made available or that there will be adjustments made to support small and micro businesses like myself.
What this means for you as a customer
But for now, to protect myself from any potential fines I will be turning off sales to the EU and Northern Ireland on both my website and Etsy on 12th December.
If you are an EU based customer and hoped to join me for a class next year then I recommend booking your spot before this date. And if you have your eye on a kit or pattern, then take advantage of my Colour Friday sale now!
I’d like to reiterate to my EU beaders that it’s not goodbye! We can still keep in touch – if you haven’t already then please do join my Facebook group community and I’m hopeful that we can also connect through collaborations with bead shops in the future.
If anything changes then I will let you know! I’m so, so grateful for all your support.
x Chloe
