“This is going to hurt us”: multiple boutique guitar brands stop selling in the EU over new GPSR import rules
Various boutique pedal companies have announced that they’re stopped selling to the EU and Northern Irish customers over worries surrounding the European Union’s new GPSR import rules – which they claim adds huge costs to shipping into the bloc.
READ MORE: Brexit: The perfect storm for UK guitar buyers?
The new General Product Safety Regulation comes into effect on 13th December and adds new obligations to non-EU businesses (including those in the UK mainland but excluding Northern Ireland) selling non-food goods to the EU, as well as to Northern Ireland. Businesses must now follow new requirements regarding having a person to contact on matters of product safety and making products more traceable.
Critics of the GPSR say that the new regulations are too difficult for small businesses to follow, exposing them to vastly increased costs and the risk of being subject to significant fines. Indeed, navigating the GPSR rules has proved so problematic that a slew of pedal manufacturers and retailers have announced they will be suspending sales to the EU and Northern Ireland indefinitely.
US boutique pedal company Land Devices, for example, have paused selling to the EU “until further notice”, as have Oneder Effects. While Black Mass Electronics posted an impassioned statement to its Instagram Stories.
“The fines are insanely high, the cost of compliance is equally high,” the statement read. “No one is going to be able to ship into the EU without paying a liaison to represent your business in the EU. Until we find out more information about how this will be enforced we gotta shut it down.
“We sell a ton to the EU. We have always been in compliance. We even collected VAT, duties and customs charges directly. I talked to a Shopify representative who basically told me to kick rocks. As far as I can tell, there is no safe way to continue shipping into the EU until we learn more. Which won’t happen until after the changes take place. This is going to hurt us.”
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Meanwhile, UK based boutique-focused retailer James’ Home Of Tone also confirmed it is “simply not viable” for the business to continue trading in the EU.
“I’m so grateful for the support from my NI and EU customers throughout the years but right now, this change isn’t good nor viable for me and my business,” wrote owner James Gascoigne. “This will no doubt affect most, if not all, small UK businesses so you have already seen posts like this over the coming week before it kicks in on 13th December. I will continue to learn and work towards making it viable, but right now this simply has to be the decision.”
Boutique guitar gear companies are far from the only businesses affected by GPSR of course, this week the UK’s Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) warned that “The GPSR will be a real barrier to trade,” while The Guardian newspaper reports that the GPSR requirements for an agent based in the EU or Northern Ireland to respond to queries about the product will costing at least €150 per item a year.
With such large costs being accrued, it’s no surprise that many smaller businesses think it’s no longer worth the risk of selling direct to the EU – it seems unlikely that Land Devices, Black Mass Electronics, Oneder and James’ Home Of Tone will be the last to change their policies.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
