This shit is beginning to get real. Amazon the world's largest online retailer knows a thing or two about selling stuff online. On Thursday they sent an email to all their 3rd party sellers with stock in the UK to consider moving stock to a European based warehouse to avoid the Brexit factor.
Irish Times - Amazon warns on Hard Brexit
This obviously applies to all UK based online stores and to us selling to UK residents.
A hard Brexit will mean:-
- Tariffs to UK orders and UK based online stores
- Customs declaration forms with all deliveries.
- Delays in customs.
One good thing that would happen is that all the online stores pretending to be Irish will be found out when their products are stuck in customs for days, you get a tax bill on delivery and a customs declaration is attached.
For us this would in effect be an end to us selling to the UK (and vice versa) unless we open a UK warehouse, as no one wants to buy what we sell with a custom declaration attached. It's impossible to be discreet if the contents are written on the front of the package!
Many of our suppliers are UK based, even Amazon will need to consider this very black and white and start making decisions now. It really is going to shake up the online retailer market as the vast majority of overseas websites the Irish buy from are UK based and a hard Brexit would make it as complicated as buying direct from the USA or China.
Real Irish online retailers can of course continue to sell in Ireland no problem, but we are going to have to look further afield if we plan to export.
I have to admit if you asked me even 3 months ago I would have said not a chance to a hard Brexit and now I still think it's unlikely, but good God they are really trying their hardest to F*#k this up aren't they?