Buying from China in 2021

 Hi Everyone

Whilst my blog usually has pictures and designs for paper crafts, today I would like to talk about buying from abroad. 

Now that the Uk has left the European Market, if you purchase from abroad you will need to be aware that items purchased from a country in the EU could incur additional duties. Long established businesses may show any tax due on the invoice, but what if you are buying from a small business that has not geared up to sell to the UK market from 1st January 2021. Check out google for tales of additional  payments required when items reached the UK buyer, and you will quickly see it makes sense to know what duties are due and whether you have paid them at source or will be expected to pay them when the goods get to you. It would seem there is an additional cost if the Post Office collect the duty on behalf of the government and should therefore be avoided if possible. 

Added to this I found that any items I wish to purchase from AliExpress from the 1st January will incur an additional charge for VAT of 20%. The rules use to be any item under £15 was exempt but as the Uk have now agreed with China that ALiExpress is the seller not the individual stores, it would seem they are taking no chances and charging VAT on all items sold. 

If like me you add things to your basket and then click on the items you wish to pay for to get the total and then pay, what happens now is the total of the goods in the basket will come up and then when you click to pay the new total including VAT will appear for the payment amount. I had a selection of items in my basket totalling £44.65, and when I pressed to pay the total became just over £53. It took me some time to find out why, and then I had the job of going back through my items to see if the price for each item with the VAT added still provided me with the best price available on the web. I do not leave my credit card on my account and so it was quite easy for me to spot the additional tax, not so sure if this is the case if it is one click shopping.

As it happens I continued with all my purchases, but yesterday when I was looking at purchasing some additional brads the VAT made a difference, as the end price became £1.30 for 20 brads. Whilst this was not expensive for the pretty choice available, the thought of waiting for the items to arrive with very little saving made them less desirable to me.

Just something to think about, and another reason to consider your purchases.

Happy Crafting

Dee