Note on shipping to the EU, September 2021

If you haven’t been paying close attention, the UK left the EU and we are all dealing with a raft of changes to the trading relationship with our European pals.

As many of you will know when buying and selling between the UK and Europe there are new VAT and Duty regulations in place which affect even goods bought for personal use.

We thought we had best mention how things are currently working as we get into busy online shopping season and so many of our garments leave us heading for Europe!

Please note our website business is not currently registered for VAT and you have not been paying VAT on orders from us since about 2010! We do not think this can continue much longer and you may have to be prepared for VAT being added at some point in the future. So get shopping ASAP as prices may be going up!

We still have free shipping worldwide – this is an offer we put in place during Covid restrictions to represent the fact you have been unable to visit us in person. However this cannot continue forever and you should expect the offer to be removed shortly. Another good reason to get shopping ASAP.

If you are shopping online and shipping inside the UK nothing has changed. Yay!

If you are buying from non UK or non Europe and are as a result mailing to ‘Rest of the World’, then nothing has changed. Yipee!

If however you are based in Europe and buying from us, or are shipping goods from us to an address in Europe then a few things to note:

• If your order from us is below €150 (broadly £135) then we have to charge EU VAT at the point of sale and send that on to your own country’s tax authority. As it stands we are working on a major software update for the website to enable us to do so. Moving forward our shopping cart will identify which country you are mailing to and will charge the relevant local EU VAT on top of the price of the garment or garments you are ordering. We also have to include a small handling fee which we incur for using this facility. Once the update is in place you’ll see it all done automatically at the shopping cart. Essentially if we are asking for £89 for a jumper, you’ll be asked also to pay your VAT of 19% or 23% or whatever is is where you are based. Plus a small handling fee, which we understand will be £2.50 or similar.
  • For example. An £89 garment posting to Germany. You’ll be charged 19% VAT which would in this case be £16.91. Plus £2.50 handling fee. In total that would be £108.41.

• If you order is above €150 (again broadly £135) then we do not have to charge EU VAT at the point of sale, instead you will be asked to pay this directly to your local tax authority before the goods can be delivered. We take payment for the garment and pass the goods on to the shipping agent. Usually that is the Royal Mail here in the UK who then pass on to your own local equivalent, Deutche Post for example. You will then be contacted directly by you local postal authority and asked to pay them the VAT and handling fee before they can complete delivery.

In both of these examples you can see there will be a lot more administration involved and the extra step on paying VAT to your local authority is all brand new so likely to be a bumpy road while everyone gets used to how it will be working.

Likely the whole picture will change in the months and years ahead and we hope to be able to further streamline the process for you.

I assure you we have no interest in the prices going up or for additional barriers to your shopping – however we must comply with the new regulations to ensure everyone still has access to lovely Scottish Knitwear!

If you have any questions, or maybe know of better systems which are in operation then we would love to hear from you!

Email us at info@billbaber.com