For Emily Cole, Christmas is usually a whirlwind of selling, packaging and shipping. The 33-year-old, from Lincolnshire, is an illustrator, and her calendars, notepads and tote bags – adorned with original artwork of horses – are a hit on both sides of the Atlantic.
But this winter has been a quiet one. Roughly a third of Cole’s customers are based in Europe, but new and complex EU regulations introduced on December 13 mean she has had to stop selling there.
“We’re a two-person business so we are quite swamped trying to deal with everything else,” she says. “We don’t know what is and isn’t allowed, but we do know we could be fined quite heavily if we get it wrong.”
The change affecting thousands of Britain’s small businesses is a harmless-sounding piece of bureaucracy.
The EU has replaced its General Product Safety Directive with the very similar-sounding General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR), but there are big differences between the two, and they’re proving a headache.
Among the changes, which also apply to shipments to Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, is the stipulation that retailers must have a representative in the EU if they wish to sell there, in the event customers want to contact the seller about product safety.
Businesses can be fined up to £5,000 for failing to comply. But communications of the changes from Labour have been sparse, small businesses claim, leaving many in the dark as to how to avoid the hefty penalties.
“I initially thought it would only apply for electronic goods, but you basically have to have a safety report for each product,” says Cole. “I’m hoping this can be streamlined slightly as we have more than 100 products.”
For larger companies that already have a base in Europe, meeting GPSR guidelines is easy enough. But smaller British businesses are left with no choice but to pay a retainer fee to have a safety representative in the EU.
Victoria Eggs now regrets the amount she has spent on advertising her products in the EU – Victoria Eggs
Victoria Eggs, whose eponymous homeware business sells products through Laura Ashley, Next and Harrods, is now mourning the sunken cost of advertising in the EU. She estimates the regulations will cost her £2,000 a month in lost revenue.
This is further aggravated by online marketplaces such as Etsy grouping the UK and Northern Ireland together, despite the fact that post-Brexit rules treat Northern Ireland as though it effectively remained in the EU for shipping purposes.
The added bureaucracy has forced retailers to manually filter and cancel any orders from the EU, and indeed stop selling to Northern Ireland.
Story Continues
Meeting the standard demanded of the EU, Eggs says, will involve updating product information for eight manufacturers and more than 250 stock-keeping units.
“Guidance is yet to be issued to help clarify the extent to which we will need to make these changes,” she adds. “This is such a large impact for us, and having recently attended a GPSR webinar this morning with over 1,000 other small businesses, the scale of this is mind-blowing.”
Matt Hopkins, of small business support platform IND!E, says the new regulations are likely to “significantly increase” the running costs for small businesses exporting to the Continent.
He explains: “For an SME selling to Europe, compliance with the GPSR could easily cost over £5,000 a year, with additional hidden costs in time and resources.
“While large companies can absorb these changes, smaller brands face a disproportionate impact that may force them to rethink their presence in the EU market.”
Mr Hopkins says Labour should consider offering grants to small businesses to ensure they aren’t priced out of EU trade altogether.
In the meantime, start-ups like Cole’s are halting sales to the EU, and fear some of that lost business may never return.
“It’s sad because I have known some of these customers for years because we are that sort of business,” Ms Cole says.
“If we can’t sort it out we will just have to stop selling to certain customers. We have tried to make selling in the EU easier despite Brexit and Royal Mail tripling postage costs, but after all those years of work it’s just been cut off.”
A government spokesman said: “Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and are therefore front and centre of this Government’s growth mission. We have also been clear that we want to reset our relationship with the EU to make it easier for businesses to trade with Europe.
“We are supporting SMEs across the whole of the UK to get ready for GPSR and will be publishing more guidance shortly. We will keep this under review and continue to engage businesses to ensure they are supported to trade freely.”
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6762b9f84dfc48f9ace5e63998c7ecce&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffinance.yahoo.com%2Fnews%2Fm-losing-third-business-thanks-080000928.html&c=6630302876806646841&mkt=de-de
Author :
Publish date : 2024-12-18 00:01:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
