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news
Brooks Cambium C17 saddle - detailCaveat emptor: Brooks England resumes shipments to UK online customers, but warns they will have to pay Brexit duties
Brooks England, which suspended sales to UK customers buying products direct from its website following the end of the Brexit transition period, has resumed shipments to shoppers here – but is warning them that they will be liable for VAT and potential customs charges now that the country has left the EU, despite the products being made in the West Midlands.
As we reported in January, the company – founded in Smethwick almost 140 years ago and owned since 2002 by Italy’s Selle Royal – now fulfils orders made through its website via its parent company, meaning products are sent there for shipping, and it suspended orders from the UK following the end of the Brexit transition period on 31 December last year.
> Brooks England stops online sales of ‘Made in Britain’ saddles to UK shoppers – because of Brexit
In an email sent to customers this week, the company said that it is now shipping orders to the UK again, but highlighted that people here buying its saddles and other products from its website will have to pay import VAT and other potential levies and duties.
The email stated:
Orders from the UK have now resumed. However, there are important conditions to share with you before you place your order.
As you know, Brooks England is a part of Selle Royal Spa, and all online orders are shipped from Italy. Please consider then that any orders received by Selle Royal Spa will be subject to the terms and conditions of DAP Incoterms® 2020 rule.
In case of shipping to the United Kingdom, the price you pay to Selle Royal Spa will not include any relevant import customs duties, import VAT or any other applicable import levies. As the buyer, you will be required to pay any duties, taxes and/or levies upon arrival of your parcel at its place of destination, in order to have your order released from Customs. By placing your order, you also acknowledge and accept that you are responsible for checking if there is any specific rule or restriction applicable to the import of the goods into the UK.
As we are unable to advise you on the exact cost for the taxes and duties, we recommend contacting your local customs office or tax authority before proceeding with your order. For returns, we will refund the cost of the products and the shipping, but we cannot refund the taxes and duties that have already been paid to the customs office. Finally, please note that, in occasional cases, your parcel may be delayed by Customs and subsequent charges may be applied.
Due to new Brexit regulations, UK orders must meet a minimum of £135. Please note that the prices shown for orders to the UK do not include VAT. All Taxes and Duties must be paid to the courier upon delivery.
Thank you for your continued understanding and we look forward to serving your needs in the near future.
The advice only applies to products ordered direct from the company’s website; as Brooks England’s British distributor Extra UK made clear in January, the ones it supplies to premium dealers here are unaffected.
“UK distribution through Extra UK is unchanged,” the company said at the time. “Extra UK will continue to deliver Brooks England products to Brooks Premium Dealers throughout the UK and Ireland. UK consumers can use the Brooks England store locator to find a local stockist.
“Furthermore, we can confirm that UK-made Brooks England products are shipped directly from the Brooks England factory in Smethwick to Extra UK’s warehouse, and not via Selle Royal’s HQ in Italy,” it added.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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35 comments
As of posting this is the 59th post on a subject that would have been irrelevant except the politicians currently in power lied during the Brexit campaign. What a waste of time and energy the Brexit sh1t show is. I don't know anyone who has seen any benefit from it.
Apart from Johnson who needed it to become Prime Minister...
So, if I, based in the West Midlands, want to buy from this company, also based in the West Midlands, I'll have to pay import duties for them to send it from Smethwick, also in the West Midlands, while they pocket a mythical import charge they aren't actually paying or required to pay?
A: This is ridiculous and doesn't sound legal
B: Boycott
No. Road.cc is shit stirring. Read the last paragraph.
Indeed. Nothing to see here. Move on.
Well they aren't shit stirring. You cannot purchase directly from Brookes without paying an import duty due to the way they distribute direct sales from their website.
The last paragraph is for UK distributors who use Extra (who I believe don't sell direct to the public but are dealer suppliers). I suspect they could easily get around this with 2-3 additonal people based in Smethwick but I suspect they will only do that if they realise they are losing lots of money because of "Option B" in Jenova's post.
SRS is careful to say that any "relevant" taxes are payable. Road.cc has amped that up to "will have to pay brexit duties".
My understanding is that for EU origin product there are no import taxes or extra vat. You either pay VAT inclusive for orders up to ￡135 (and the seller pays the VAT to the UK, same as for a local supplier - but SRS don't seem to want to be bothered with that) or you buy VAT exclusive over £135 and settle VAT on import.
I'd be surprised if UK origin product was treated any less favourably than EU origin, but of course they might never have imagined a UK manufacturer would be daft enough to ship from Smethwick to Selly Oak via Rome, so maybe there is an oversight there?
As to Brooks "England" stuff out of China, yes, there would be an issue if that was shipped via Italy. I understand that it would attract tariffs at both the EU and again at the UK borders.
It would be good if some proper journalism could actually be brought to bear on the situation. How much is just SRS not wanting to play by the new rules, and how much is genuinely unavoidable tax/tariffs in this situation? But all we get is road.cc's political gripe. Plenty other organs for that if they don't want to stick to cycling.
If only they had received a bit more warning Brexit was going to happen. Oh...
The deal was signed just before christmas, so no, not a great deal they could do. No detail on what they needed to prepare for.
Why did they need detail?
Setting up the website so that UK orders are fulfilled by their UK distributor would have covered them for all possible scenarios.
The fact that they haven't managed to do this in 5 years reflects pretty poorly on Brooks.
The fault lies with the liars of Vote Leave and the Conservative & Brexit Party, for lying and lying and lying about what Brexit would entail.
That includes Johnson, Gove, Cummings, Stuart...the whole lot of them.
Brooks did not decide that the UK would leave the Single Market. Brooks didn't choose to have import VAT and import duties added to their products. That's the fault of Johnson's Dishonest Mob.
All true as far as it goes. It was however Brooks/Selle's decision not to change their direct sales model to compensate though.
Simply don't buy via their website seems to be the take home from this. Plus ffs, the extra environmental damage due to shipping the damn things to Europe before shipping them back.
That too.
I'd have thought there was merit in a system that privileged buying a UK product in the UK via a UK retailer. But that's not the drum they want to bang here on road.cc.
I suppose the take home from this is buy local and by this I mean from a British Web site.
Buy from a British retailer, which won't rip you off and claim your order is travelling Europe, when it's actually from down the road.
Its actually more difficult than you'd think to work out if the website you're buying from is actually in the UK/shipping from the UK.
They've had five years to come up with a plan to ship things made in England to customers who live in England.
I suppose warehouse staff are cheaper in Italy.
“UK distribution through Extra UK is unchanged,” the company said at the time. “Extra UK will continue to deliver Brooks England products to Brooks Premium Dealers throughout the UK and Ireland. UK consumers can use the Brooks England store locator to find a local stockist.
“Furthermore, we can confirm that UK-made Brooks England products are shipped directly from the Brooks England factory in Smethwick to Extra UK’s warehouse, and not via Selle Royal’s HQ in Italy,” it added.
Seems like a plan to me.
That is not true.
There was 5 years of wrangling, but you may remember that the deal only became clear at the last minute, Christmas 2020. And it was nothing at all like the frictionless trade our lying Prime Minister promised.
It's bad enough Johnson constantly telling lies, without other people misrepresenting the facts to let him off the hook.
The products are manufactured in the UK.
If Brooks had set up their website so that UK orders were fulfilled through their UK distributor then they would have been covered for any type of deal whatsoever.
Why they chose not to do so and why they're now doubling down on that decision is a bit of a mystery.
Madness!!
It is madness! Also feels like in the intervening months, Brooks could have done something about the situation rather than just saying "Screw it, sales are back on but there's a load of taxes to pay".
They clearly have a UK distribution capability from their work with Extra so why not use it for direct sales?
Brexit is stupid but so is doing nothing about it for your customers.
I dont understand how theyve come up with their system either that then drops the VAT/import bit on a customs process you have to deal with, when other suppliers in the EU have adopted and are now happily just treating those bits as thats the dispatch to the UK cost they add on and deal with for you upfront.
we'll see what happens next when the EUs implementation of vat rules finally come in July.
They're claiming a vat refund when the goods leave the UK, in this case, and then UK purchasers have to repay it to reimport.
Why would they be paying VAT for shipping from one part of the business to another?
Because they're in different VAT regimes. That's how taxes work.
... But the goods aren't leaving the UK. They're in Smethwick. They're literally pocketing import charges they don't need to pay. I could literally cycle to them in 30 minutes and collect an order, but on their website they'll charge me as though its coming from Italy. Its madness.
If you buy as an individual you will get the ones reimported from the online retail store. Go to a UK dealership and you get a UK one. It says this right there in the article. So no, they are not pocketing import charges, you made that bit up.
Are they? I thought all product was shipped to selle's distribution centre in Italy before being sent to consumers.
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