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New requirements for international mail - BO please take action
There are major changes about sending goods internationally from January 1st, 2020.
Below is google translated information from the Dutch Post:
(1)
Due to international regulations, determined by the Universal Postal Union, we must make a strict distinction between sending documents and goods. All your goods shipments must in future be provided with a shipping label with barcode. In addition, countries require that we share the information about these shipments digitally and in advance with them.
(2)
Do you ship goods without track & trace? Then the big change is that every shipment must be provided with a shipping label including barcode. You must also provide more information about the shipment. Consider, for example, a telephone number and e-mail address of sender and recipient.
----
In order to fulfil these new requirements -- we as sellers -- need additional information about the buyer. To be precise: we need their email address and telephone number because we have to fill this in on the website of the postal organization that handles the service.
Right now sellers on Brick Owl have no access to the email address from the buyer.
Phone number is optional when creating an account on Brick Owl but it should be an obligation in the future.
TL;DR (Conclusion):
To comply to the new rules from the UPU sellers need access to buyer's email adress and phone number. Please make that avaible.
Below is google translated information from the Dutch Post:
(1)
Due to international regulations, determined by the Universal Postal Union, we must make a strict distinction between sending documents and goods. All your goods shipments must in future be provided with a shipping label with barcode. In addition, countries require that we share the information about these shipments digitally and in advance with them.
(2)
Do you ship goods without track & trace? Then the big change is that every shipment must be provided with a shipping label including barcode. You must also provide more information about the shipment. Consider, for example, a telephone number and e-mail address of sender and recipient.
----
In order to fulfil these new requirements -- we as sellers -- need additional information about the buyer. To be precise: we need their email address and telephone number because we have to fill this in on the website of the postal organization that handles the service.
Right now sellers on Brick Owl have no access to the email address from the buyer.
Phone number is optional when creating an account on Brick Owl but it should be an obligation in the future.
TL;DR (Conclusion):
To comply to the new rules from the UPU sellers need access to buyer's email adress and phone number. Please make that avaible.
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Comments
The email you can use the one that is displayed when you click message customer inside an order, but I have experienced it being too long to some providers I used before.
An for the phone number I put a 0 when the customer does not have it.
PD: My country postal system didn't knew about this change until last month when I asked them and went up by mails to a responsable that told me that it was a new thing, and they were not prepared, the system won't be updated in a few months to support it...
BrickOwl provides an “anonymous” email contact between buyer and seller. Also with PayPal processing you have each other’s “real” email - which annoys me when someone uses that rather than internal message system.
I have to provide a phone number to USPS already and that goes on any international package. I imagine it’ll be similar for you. Y’all are just catching up!
Do these rules apply to all e-commerce or only to larger businesses with hefty turnovers?
I just ran a test on RM's website to send a package to the Netherlands (a real address) and with the label to be printed from their site and at no point was there any issue raised in regards to the OP's comments.
Doing the same thing via PayPal (business account) and again, their system raised no issues in relation to this subject.
Quote: In addition, countries require that we share the information about these shipments digitally and in advance with them.
Q: How is that achieved?
1. (Commercial) goods are no longer allowed in their regular international outgoing mail service, everything should be either shipped as parcel (=expensive) or as a new "Brievenbuspakket buitenland" (letterbox parcel international) which is only available for registered businesses. For both is some more information required than before 1/1/2020; but for now within the EU the only digital information required are details of the seller and the address of the receiver. Before we could just write the address on the mailer, apply the right amount of stamps and ship using a regular orange mail dropbox in the neighborhood. Now we need to bring these shipments to a post office (or at least a post service point) which off course have limited opening hours, etc.
2. Digital CN22 / CN23 forms for shipments going outside the EU. PostNL allowed until 2019 for these to be handwritten. As of 1/1/2020; those are printed together with the shipping label as was already normal in some countries and for example for DHL.
3. The tariff structure for international mail has changed (seems to be cheaper, but more work as mentioned above)
4. The allowed size of low weight domestic mail seems to be reduced, but information on that is not very clear.
The sharing of digital information is done with a barcode on the shipping label (not necessarily the same as the tracking barcode!) by which authorities can access the database with the provided information.
As of today it is now required for us in The Netherlands who are using PostNL to enter email OR phone number for any shipment outside the EU. Without it, it's impossible to prepare a shipping label.
See attachment.
So this is quite imminent. @Lawrence: can you please PM me the email or telephone of this recipient so I can ship this order?
And at large: I think you have to make email addresses available to the sellers and/or a valid telephone number required for all buyers on Brick Owl.
I'm sorry to be the messenger of this bad news because I understand this will be a lot of work for you...
Today i have used the brickowl email adres of the customer. but i don't think that customs is happy with this email adres.
please provide the customers email adres on the order page.
[email protected]
It's almost impossible to memorize and/or transcribe it correctly. A shorter email address (bitly style) would be more useful.
And why would customns need an easy to type address, all info regarding the shipment is in a database and they can copy/past it (or maybe even only have to click on it). If indeed that info is in a database remains to be seen, but that is what i told by PostNL
On the other hand, the rule that goods can only be shipped when info regarding contents is known is bogus according to me, in not any EU shipment I have had to declare what is inside the letter
@lawrence, are the email adres such a big secret ? personal i don't have any problems with providing sellers my personal email adres. They already got my home adres, PayPal adres so why not give them my email adres?
Than there comes another problem, all private message with email addresses and phone numbers seem to get automatically deleted and never make it back to me, so I have to mail my customers outside of the Brickowl system....
You expect us to follow the law and proof we deliver our packages and yet you do not provide us with this information as sellers.
You could also make it so only sellers can see the information in the order or make an option in the shipping where you can get the option to not provide a phone number but than you take all the loss if the package gets lost.
You could also make a forward phone number where you as brickowl forward all the messages for the paranoid customers.
options enough, but the current system is not good enough. We are required to enter phone numbers to sent orders, or else there is no other way than normal not tracked post letters. Make your choice.
This isn't directed at anyone in particular, but it seems to me that a lot of the new sellers on BO are trying to turn this place into a carbon copy of BL. That will be resisted by many because BL has been a lawless void where many sellers behave appallingly.
According to GDPR (privacy legislation in EU), you can ask for those details when you have a good explanation why you need it, with who you will share it and how you will use it. For an e-commerce platform (like BrickOwl), it seems justified to ask for email and phone. If BrickOwl only shares this information between buyer and seller (as part of the order shipping information), I really don't see the problem.
When shipping with PostNL to another EU country both mail and phone are not required. Shipping outside EU we need a phone or mail (not both).
And yes, house number can't be required when shipping to GB since there are still houses without a number
On topic of phone number: lots of online platforms require it upon registration for two factor authentication (or password forgotten verification). When the user agrees it gets shared with the seller as part of the shipping information, once again: I don't see a big problem in implementing this feature on BrickOwl. I do see a trend in the way we are becoming overly protective when it comes to personal data. Of course it should be well managed and well protected. But it has come to the point where platforms are afraid of asking relevant data. Just because there are a minority of cases that it could be mis-used for purposes it wasn't supplied. And I do believe BrickOwl should change it's T&C in that case, so the sellers are agreeing to only use the information for so and so purposes (and not for direct marketing, etc). This way, I believe the legal / privacy parts are covered for all parties: BrickOwl, seller and buyer - without negatively impacting the usability features of the order process.
But you've made your point - accessing some shipping services online requires the submission of a phone number and/or email address. But this information is not legally mandatory for the shipping agent to deliver a parcel, and GDPR says information should only be requested and retained if necessary - and clearly it's not in this case. The shipping agent may 'require' it if you purchase online, but go to any branch with a parcel and you can ship without. As I said higher up the thread, believe it or not, some people don't have either.
So the seller has a choice - either to use a shipping service that doesn't ask them to hand over third-party personal information, or check with the customer that they don't mind (and at the same time letting them know what the shipping agent intends to do with the info by reference to their terms and privacy policy).
BO could automate part of this process but provision would have to be made for those buyers who don't wish for their personal information to be handed over to an unknown third party.
When I ship orders to my customers I copy/paste ALL the lines in the Shipping Address field. If a phone number is there, it's there for a reason and I include it as well – even if it's not required. I've never had a customer complaining about it.
Doing something no-one's ever complained about doesn't make it legal. It may be, it may not be, I'm not that intimately familiar with GDPR, just the basics, but I'm pretty sure that it's not legal to pass on third party personal information without that party's specific permission and their being told what it's going to be used for.
I do support BO enabling the ability for customer's to agree that their phone number and email address can be shared with the shipping agent, but in such a way that complies with GDPR. I don't wish BO to join BL in the wild west.
I investigated this thing a bit and as I am somewhat involved in the parcel business, then I think I can finalize this topic:
The phone number may be mandatory on some occasion, but it does not affect the GDPR. Information on the postal package is covered by the International postal law and UPU that everything on and inside the parcel is personal information. Leaking this information to third parties - now that is something that is very strictly followed and ensured that could not happen. If someone will provide your information (even just your name and address) to third persons, then that is breaking the law and violating GDPR.
TL, DR: Adding information on your parcel is okay (nickname, full name, phone number, e-mail, address, etc.), sharing that information to others besides the sender (including the shipping or postal company) is violation of the General Data Protection Regulation and can be punished quite severely.
It is up to the postal or shipping service provider to ensure that your personal data on your package is only used to deliver the package to you and to not leak/give that information to anyone else besides the sender and/or receiver.
And last, but not least - it is up to the sender and receiver to give the shipping address. For example, it is totally up to the sender to add the shipment information. So basically you can make a shipment with the following information:
Name: Jhonny Bravo
Address: Big Walk Way 26, Funtown, Greenland
Phone number: +123456789-N-A
E-mail: [email protected]
Company: Sausage Factory United
The postal/delivery company has to enter that information exactly and if that location exists, then it is up to the postal delivery company to ship it to that location. If it is not reachable, then it will be returned to the sendes (if that complies). Now, if they even find a location, but there is only one apartment building on Big Walk Way and that is number 2 and there is an apartment 6 (correct address would be Big Walk Way 2-6 or Big Walk Way 2 apartment 6), then appropriate way would be to return to the sender, because it can not be decided by the shipping/postal company if it is a typo or not.
From humane perspective and common sense, it would look like a reasonable thing, but that would actually violate the GDPR and there can be bad consiquenses...
With regards and keep it simple
The email addresses provided by BO right now are too long to be entered into most shipping companies' fields.
This is going to be a requierement from the 1st of april, we need this!
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Which I believe are 40 characters. I've been having to put [email protected] as email in most of my BO orders, unless I go to the paypal transaction and get the email from there.
Also, as another change for the better, could you please put the email address (whichever one it is, the real or the BO one), in a more accessible place, on the order page? So we don't have to go clicking through send message and copy from there.
Thanks!
With regards to putting it in a more accessible place, maybe that would be best as a separate suggestion, so that other members can comment on what they think would be best, as currently it's just one extra click.