NEW EU WEBSITE NOW LIVE
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NEW EU WEBSITE NOW LIVE
We will be sending a newsletter with the text below out tomorrow morning. But we wanted you guys to know in advance.
**_We’re delighted that we are again open for orders from European Union (EU) countries.
We have found a way forward with selling into the EU, and have created a new, EU specific website – www.ironhearteu.com
ON ORDERS WE SHIP TO THE EU, WE WILL PAY ALL DUTY, VAT AND ASSOCIATED HANDLING FEES, SO THE PRICE YOU PAY IS THE FINAL PRICE (WITH NO UNEXPECTED EXTRAS ON DELIVERY).
I am dearly sorry that we had to close the shop down and doing so has caused us sleepless nights. Turning off sales to one of our largest markets is something that in my worst nightmares I could not have envisaged needing to do.
Some people have criticized us for not being prepared for Brexit. Whilst to many of you it may seem like that, we had in fact worked hard to be well prepared for many months, and what actually transpired on 1st January was something that came as a great surprise to just about everybody, which is why so many small/medium businesses are hurting. Assurances for many months of duty-free trading simply haven’t happened, and the additional fees being levied for the massive amounts of extra paperwork are far higher than we were led to believe.
The net effect it has had on us is that the cost of us doing business with an EU country is considerably higher than with any other country in the world. The fact that our closest geographical neighbors and friends are now the hardest to do business with is both ridiculous and sad.
Many small businesses on both sides of the Channel are struggling, and many will sadly cease trading. We consider ourselves extremely lucky that we have buoyant global sales that help ease the pain.
We hope that you will understand that our actions over the past couple of weeks were in no way a reflection on our commitment to our EU customers, and we look forward to your continued support. If you have any questions about buying from the EU, please don’t hesitate to contact us at shop@ironheart.co.uk
All of your buying history should be in the new EU site.
Any issues at all, please let us know._**
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That's a great news! How are the returns going to work?
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Returns/exchanges, for the time being, will absolutely kill us. We are paying duty and taxes on your behalf, we will be paying that to one of 27 tax authorities in the EU, claiming that back when we get a return will be an absolute nightmare. Taxes, duties and fees on a EUR400 pair of jeans will mean we have paid EUR140 which we can't reclaim if the goods are refunded. When we get our tax entity registered in The Netherlands, things will get a lot easier, but it is probably 8 weeks until we can ship that way.
So FFS make sure you get the right size and you will like what we send you.
If you do send something back to us using a method other than our returns shipping service, we will likely have to pay another EUR140 to get that pair of jeans back into the country. Using our returns service, we can prove we have exported the goods and know what UK customs need to see on the shipping documents not to charge us. Please go read this:
https://www.ironhearteu.com/content/returns-exchanges
Especially this sentence:
If you don’t follow this process, we will end up paying taxes and duties on the item for a second time around which we will deduct from your refund/credit.
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Each country has its own tax authority. As a member of the EU, you only have to deal with your own national authority and then they deal with all the other tax authorities.
As a
pariahnon-member, you have no such luxury, you deal with all of them independently. Dealing with our own tax authority is hard enough, without trying to learn 27 other languages to deal with all the others…. -
Many thanks to @giles and everybody else in Gosport. Didn't feel to be in a disadvantage living on the continent within the last weeks, since you all handled this problem with the professional kindness we are all so much pleased about as IH customers. And I agree it's just very sad that some voices are trying to tear apart what has come closer together in a good way. Don't know where this is going, but I'm sure you will deal with it very well. Really appreciate it.
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You folks handled this like you handle everything.
With class and style…not to mention with speed!
great news indeed! -
Lovely news. Best of luck through these times to you and the team Giles.
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Will I be able to pay in USD from the EU website? Now it is impossible to change the currency.
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it appears the British government hates its citizens as much as the American government hates theirs.
Fucking appalling. Beyond the pale. -
When I was in the military, we would call the situation a “clusterfuck - a disastrously mishandled situation or undertaking”.
Seems appropriate!
oh I remember that word when I was serving as well. "rush to wait and wait to rush" ends up causing most clusterfuck
@Giles out of curiousity, is the EU being set up as a seperate entity the way you guys did with IH America?
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Not quite. We are in the process of setting up a taxable presence in the Netherlands, but the Netherlands is unique in that we can do that without registering a company. In the US, we had to do both…
ahh right. I'm guessing it's the same as what a few major companies like nike do. I did notice that some of their worldwide sales are billed through the Netherlands.. I'm assuming the process would be somewhat similar to that?
