Buying motorcycle gear is an expensive hobby which is why many of us shop around online for a good deal.
A quick internet search will find you a cheap pair of, say, Alpinestars boots over stocked by an Italian wholesaler, or take you to a Finnish retailer selling off last year’s Rukka stock at discounted prices. In days gone by, you’d place your order, sit back, and wait for your goods to be whisked across the continent and delivered to your doorstep here in the UK.
However, post-Brexit, we are no longer a member of the Customs Union, so the free movement of goods is no more, and the whole process has become more complicated.
The Withdrawal Agreement from the EU has various provisions for exporting goods from EU countries to Great Britain, with VAT rules that are dense and confusing. As they settle down, they will become familiar, and I expect buying goods from people in the EU will become more straightforward. In the meantime, navigating the new process continues to be problematic.
The basic rule of thumb is this. If the item you order costs less than £135, the retailer collects VAT at the point of purchase. However, if the process goes slightly awry, or mistakes are made, the final delivery courier gets to be an unpaid tax collector demanding the money from you on your doorstep.
Over £135, and things become more complicated, and that is the price point above which most motorcycle gear is sold. So, for goods worth over £135, VAT is collected at the point of delivery, or in other words, you. You may also be asked to pay customs duties which range from 0% to 25%.
On top of this, delivery companies have started charging additional handling fees to cover admin costs and extra customs checks. Royal Mail, for example, is charging an £8 fee. Add all these additional fees up, and they may well cost more than the discount you got in the first place.
If all this sounds complicated, it’s also a headache for the businesses trying to sell to you. Will EU companies bother calculating what import duties, VAT, admin fees, and extra haulage costs are due on individual bits of kit. Some will. Some, I suspect, will not.
Great Britain certainly represents a big enough market for big hitters like Alpinestars, Rukka, Dainese, and Schuberth to keep supplying goods, and they are of sufficient size to register with HMRC as foreign VAT payers.
If you are, for example, Rukka, it’s worth your while jumping through the HMRC hoops. You can fill up a truck with fine and expensive Finnish waterproofs and go through the carnet hassle, because your volumes and margins are worth it. Not so much use to the small Finnish or Italian retailer selling off last year’s Rukka or Alpinestars stock to individual buyers at bargain prices online.
Some of the big EU discount clearing houses, I suspect, won’t want to lose the large British motorcycling market and will set themselves up so that VAT, and potentially import duties, are built into their websites. However, I suspect these will become rarer because, as a business proposition, they’re a lot of hassle, don’t offer huge rewards, and you only need a few orders to go wrong on small margin items for the EU vendor to decline to send to a British address.
The result of all this is that British motorcyclists are more likely to be making their single retail purchases of bike gear from British retailers in the future.
Andrew Dalton
Adventure Bike Rider Mar/Apr 2021
I am now avoiding buying stuff from the EU, sadly. I have paid £100 more for a pair of AlpineStar Tech 7 Enduro boots (just like the MX ones but water proof and a better sole for not falling over in mud) in the UK than I could have bought them from Sweden. I have also had the hassle of DPD chasing me for fees after goods have been delivered -which was, if I have got the bill right, 120 Euro – so should not have attracted anything but DPD want an extra £60. Apparently they are going to hand my “bill” on to debt recovery agents. Good luck with that, lads. You know where I am. BTW those Tech 7 were calf deep in water this weekend and they are waterproof. That genuinely surprised me.
Goods bought through any UK established on line marketing platform the platform should be accounting for the VAT. Not always so for sites like AliExpress. Any goods bought direct from the EU seller as mentioned with a value over £135 are subject to import taxes. Also worth noting that although we have a free trade agreement with the EU it is only for goods manufactured in the EU not sold from the EU many goods will be made in the far east and therefore subject to trade tariffs
Retailers in Europe that want to do business in the UK without the hassle of sorting out VAT, Duty etc themselves can sell on eBay. Providing they use eBay shipping and payment then eBay looks after it for them, so the buyer pays the tax up front and the delivery goes through as normal. I’ve bought stuff from abroad using this scheme and it works well although it has always been for items below £135 so I am not sure how it works above this value.
So far so good with EBay for me at least. But like you Pete, my Ebay Purchases trend to be under £135.