Brexit & Your Business
After quite literally YEARS of news coverage, Brexit is here and we’ve moved out of the transition period. The news of a deal with the EU brings a bit more clarity for the world of retail, but there are still lots of changes to get used to – especially if you sell a physical product.
Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash
Are you up to date with all the new requirements that might affect your business? How might they impact on how you operate? Do you need to do anything differently or adapt your plan for the year ahead?
If you’re not sure, this is a good place to start.
In particular, I want to draw your attention to the changes to paying duties, because I think this might be the part that catches a lot of people out.
If your product is made in the UK or EU, you can generally continue to benefit from tariff-free trade. But if your product is made outside the UK or EU, you’ll have to pay duty if you sell that product to someone in an EU country.
It gets more complicated, though. If your product is made in the EU and then shipped to you in the UK, that’s fine. But if you then want to sell that product back to a customer in the EU, duty will be payable.
Some bigger companies, like ASOS, have invested in warehouse space in Europe to help them to manage the impact and reduce the duty they have to pay compared with only having UK-based warehouses. It’s a bit of a minefield but you can find out more here (for importing) and here (for exporting).
