Buying from England

Malnaborg

Hi everyone, both sellers and buyers.

I want to know some information about this "Europe/England" or general "tax" payment.
For my story, i have now for the second time ended up needed to pay tax for my lego bought in an english store.
BUT as with the info on the buy page, i have paid the so called "Vat" and the "IOSS-number" is shown as well.

For some reason the danish "Postnord" postservice, do not recognize or know that it has been paid. So i am confused as to what goes wrong!? Is it from Brickowl's "payment" side, or is it the sellers who do not know how to correctly ship there product to the rest of the world. As information i checked, and it is 2 different sellers/stores. That is why i now write, because i am afraid to buy anything from England for the future, if i need to pay double tax for the Lego.

So now i am looking for information here. And i have also written a letter to postnord, to try and get information as to what specific information they need, and what goes wrong in the shipment.

Thanks for any help and have a lovely weekend.

Hoddie

The seller in the UK needs to pre-notify the tax authorities in the buyer's country that VAT has already been paid. As they're selling via Brick Owl, as far as I know it's a straightforward process, either they enter the necessary details into the online form when arranging shipping, or they take the details to the Post Office and ask them to enter them into the system.

Chances are you're paying tax because this pre-notification hasn't happened, but you can't rule out an error by the Danish post office either.

It's a reciprocal process as well, EU sellers need to pre-notify the UK tax authority that VAT has already been paid on orders being sent to the UK.

Jay37

I can't speak for other UK stores' methods, but I now do all my postage (including domestic) online as the process is more streamlined, more official, and hopefully less prone to shipment errors.

Whenever I post to the EU (the system knows which countries are in it) I am asked if I sell on a marketplace and to enter the IOSS number. This number doesn't show on the shipping label, but there is a small black circle with 'IOSS' to indicate I have entered a number.

However, it is easy to forget or bypass this step - I have to tell the system it is a marketplace sale. As a result it's possible that some UK sellers have not yet got their head round the process or have accidentally overlooked it. I have done this myself, but realized before I'd taken it to the post office and redid the label.

Theoretically you have paid the import fee as part of your order, but if the seller hasn't told the postal system because they have not entered the IOSS number this may explain why you've been charged a second time when the package arrives.

I assume the orders reached you eventually, but check how it's been addressed. Is it through the online system and is the IOSS symbol there (should be somewhere near to your address)? Or is it a handwritten address with a customs label attached?

Maybe the info on the order that tells us it's an EU shipment needs to be more prominent as that could also be overlooked by the seller.

Just a few thoughts...

Hoddie

Entering the IOSS number should result in an additional barcode on the shipping label.

Malnaborg

I have not gotten the Lego, for information i got the letter from the tax office today about needed to pay to release it from customs. So at the moment I am at a loss. Because I need to pay 171 Dkk just for the release.

My "concern" is that 2 different stores have done it "wrong"now I guess, so I just thought if it was a brickowl thing or as you say Jay37 the stores not doing it correctly when they ship or fill out the label.

P6tu

I have had the same thing and second time this happened, then it turned out that in UK they don't actually have a specific location to enter this IOSS information and it is very easy to miss from their postal service side despite the sellers actions.

That was the last time it ordered from UK... But I must mention, that this was more than a year ago, so maybe things have changed, but not my stance on this matter regarding postage from UK.

Malnaborg

Well it clearly still happens 🤪
Last time for me was a few month ago and now again.

But what is most important for me is that it is 2 different stores. Hence making me ask if it is the postal service being weird or missing information, or where it goes wrong?

Because this time, i actually think I will reject the mail. I paid 80 Dkk and the customs want a wooping 171 Dkk to release it.

Lawrence

@Malnaborg Could you contact us using the link at the bottom of the page and provide us with the order numbers, we can then contact the stores to check if they have done the IOSS correctly

Malnaborg

Hi lawrence, i will do that thank you :-)

I know this was a long shot, but i was/am just curious if others had the same experience.

alexwilcox

When IOSS was introduced I had a couple of orders to europe where I purchased the postage at the post office - the buyers then got hit with charges again.

The sellers are probably doing this.

Postage MUST be brought online in advance so that the pre-alert gets sent to the destination country in advance and they don't get hit again with fees/VAT.

Despite all the guidance saying you can still buy the postage at the post office and it will be ok this is not the case.

Pikka

This got me thinking about the opposite scenario: shipping from the EU to the UK. We use Czech Post as our preferred shipping method, sending orders as registered letters or parcels, which are then handled by Royal Mail.

As part of our shipping procedure, we attach a customs declaration CN23 to each package, along with a printed sticker that reads: "20% UK Import VAT has been paid on this order via the online marketplace Brick Owl Ltd with VAT ID GB366824270 and EORI GB366824270000." The invoice is always inside the package.

At the post office, we provide the necessary information to the clerk, who enters it into their system. While I was not aware of the IOSS number until now, it seems that our current process has been effective since we have not received any complaints from our UK buyers about customs-related issues.

Are we doing everything right? Are there any additional steps we should be taking or any other information we should be providing to ensure a smooth and hassle-free experience for our UK customers?

Hoddie

Sounds like you're doing it right. To some extent you're relying on the post office clerk to know what they're doing, but cross-border marketplace sales via Ebay and so on are common enough that most should be aware of the process. Cross-border Brick Owl sales are dealt with in the exact same way, except that the details are different.

You'll probably get a better service at a dedicated post office rather than at one which is combined with a grocers or off-license. And it's probably best to avoid their busy times when they want to chip away at the queue and may choose to dodge things they shouldn't.

Ideally you should try and sort the postage out online, then you know it's done right, but that's not always possible.

Malnaborg

I my self has only shipped 2 orders to England lately, and even though people do not normally put them at received, i have not heard anything and guess they have gotten them fine.

So yes, the problem seems to be FROM england and out.