Amazon’s UK FBA operations will be split from the EU
tamebay.com
tamebay.com
The only bombshell would be if the UK negotiators managed to prevent a hard Brexit. Given the current track record of their leading political party, this seems unlikely.
I'd imagine continuing the current scheme would add a lot of regulatory and procedural complexity for Amazon, which they are unwilling to handle.
Isn't this something that was expected by sellers?
If they've believed UK Government rhetoric about how Brexit will be a smooth process that will enhance the UK's trading opportunities, this may come as a surprise.
There are (IMO) a reasonable number of UK citizens and businesses who haven't grasped the likely consequences of what's happening on 1/1/21
Instead they explicitly rejected that opportunity and carried onwards...
I think it could well be right that they're hoping for the (likely impossible) blink from the EU, but between that, the heavy political toll a US trade deal would require (it would have a big impact on the UK farming community+possibly other areas) and the expanding spat with China, it's really not shaping up to be a good period, economically speaking.
Because those who promoted brexit comprehensively lied to the electorate about the consequences of brexit.
What's bizarre is that when challenged on how ridiculous that is, they'll immediately accept it as rational before saying "well we voted out anyway so it doesn't matter".
Still, nothing beats the cluelessness of pro-brexit British expats when they are faced with the consequences of what they demanded.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/brexit-voting-pats-sp...
I can believe that.
> Even many remain voters don’t realise all the downsides.
I can believe that, but what makes the confusion one-way? i.e. do leave voters realise all the upsides?
The upsides of Brexit are generally, at best, very subjective and ephemeral (‘sovereignty’ in the sense of passport colour change) or outright imaginary (the EU is banning kettles and jam).
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29607906-why-vote-leave was a good book for understanding some benefits of Leave.
Please don't discredit the positions or the book solely from my my hazy memory of the book, but here goes:
* EU is a weakening trade bloc, so we're better off out of the customs union, and making trade deals that work for UK, rather than that work for the EU (example: cheaper tomatoes from Africa, that the EU will not make, since it'll make Spain/Italy worse off)
* UK's voting patterns within EU was anomolous: UK voted against policies far more than other countries anyway.
* UK public seems to have a max acceptable rate of immigration, and we may prefer more selective immigration policies (e.g. target the high skilled workers in India, China, Australia)
Those are meant to pique your interest in the book. I don't think starting a debate on HN will be productive, at least because I barely remember the book.
By that I meant that the Brexiter conception of sovereignty is heavily based on surface symbolism; the archetypical Brexiter is fine with taking US rules on food safety, in which they have no voice in making, if it means they can change the colour of the passport (which, of course, they could do within the EU anyway, but never mind). That is, Brexit is not generally actually concerned with sovereignty in any real sense, and Brexit Britain will lose control, not gain it.
Actually we were repeatedly told otherwise. Not that I believed any of it.
In a mixture of losers with cocky winners, you have people who overestimate their abilities and people who are bitter.
The bitter ones demand protection against the people who come over and over-compete them, so you introduce non-meritocratic barriers like nationality. Starting on 2021, Polish and Bulgarians and so on will be barred from coming over and compete with the local workers.
The winners are cocky, many of them are really the best - UK has a great talent pool. They have a great thing going on for them, and they believe that they can overcome EU, USA and China.
The protection demand of the lower skill people seems to be served, shortly UK will start building it's non-merit based workforce(unless UK residency is a merit).
The time comes to put the winners on test. This is indeed a bombshell to the cocky ones, the people who had a good thing going on for them and believed that due to their expectational abilities everything will be about the same or better.
I still think that the UK would be able to find it's place in the new world order but many people will face bombshells as their freedoms and abilities to do business will get a haircut.
EU's skilled ones will be protected from UK's in a similar fashion of UK's less-skilled are about to get their protection. It is not as meritocratic system as before but that's what people wanted.
Oh no, most of them expected this sort of thing. They just stated otherwise to persuade the rubes.
As a European I hope UK will want to rejoin the EU. This will take time. I see price inflation in UK due to less foreign trade will lead to price increases. Inflation will make central banks raise interest rates which will make it more expensive with mortgages. I guess this was not the story UK brexit politicans sold to the UK people. And yes less income less income to UK national health service in form of taxes which was also not what was sold by politicians. Hope UK will rejoin EU soon. Frankly post Covid-19 the question is if UK can afford to exit EU.
You’re right food prices will go up, but house prices won’t come down.
My gut says "yes" which is why I decided to shy away from that part.
It’s unlikely none of that cost will end up at consumers.
As a European living in the UK, no mate, you really don't want these folks to rejoin. Their class system is pathological and their mass-media are fundamentally corrupt. I say this against my best interests, but England in particular should never be allowed back in. They made their bed and they should lie in it.
Can you list what interaction you've had with the "class system" in the UK? Is the media in your home country any different? What about the media is "corrupt"?
As for media, UK tabloids are beyond the pale. Nowhere on the continent I’ve ever seen a situation where most of the population is bombarded every day by outright racism and hate. The British upper classes make a joke of it (the “daily heil” etc), because they think it doesn’t really affect them - which is only true until it isn’t, and eventually you get a “brexit moment” when chickens come home to roost. In Italy, newspapers can be partisan or influenced by industrial interests like anywhere else, but tabloid-like hate-speech can only be found in a well-defined small minority of titles. You don’t have a Murdoch-like figure - Berlusconi had his moment and was dealt with like any other political figure. The revolving door between journalism and politics is much worse in the UK, because most people employed in both fields come effectively from the same few classes. You have journalist wives writing excuses for their politician husbands, and nobody bats an eyelid. Somebody like Boris Johnson is free to write lies for decades until he gets where he wants to get.
UK tv is better, I’ll give you that, and the BBC is excellent at being the last bastion of decency in a depressing landscape.
How do you mean? I was asking for an illustration of the "class system" that you find oppressing to your person.
> most of the population is bombarded every day by outright racism and hate.
Well that's not true is it.
> The British upper classes make a joke of it
What might be considered Victorian upper class constitutes practically no one. If you don't like the media don't consume it.
Honestly I do not understand this unhealthy fixation on class that you have and frankly reject your assertions regarding it. At a guess you are using it as a simplification to understand a landscape you can't fully understand without it.
A communal facility maintained and paid for by some people doesn't necessarily have to be made available to anyone else.
If your back garden was in sight of someone living in social housing ought they be able to make use of your property?
That’s just one example of class.
As for the landscape of classism in the UK, tbh, it is not that hard to elaborate. Of course we are not talking in Victorian terms, modern classism has its own conventions. The facts are, still, that most top jobs go to graduates from top universities, whose alumni are drafted overwhelmingly from certain (expensive) schools, whose pupils are put “on rails” at the tender age of 4 by parents with deep pockets. See for example this source, but the situation is very well-known: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/oxford-unive... Note that i’m not talking in absolutes, this is actually something that affects me: I know my kids will struggle to ever reach any pinnacle, if they stay here, simply because I cannot afford to put them through the “right” schools.
This system has its upsides (the upper classes are really well-educated, as our classicist PM demonstrates) but it is undeniably a drag on social mobility: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48103017i
Which is a bad thing?
You do realise that currently any company operating in a EU members country can have their HQ in any EU members country and with that, game the TAX system. So many companies operate in EU member countries, paying very little tax as they can just pay tax in another EU member country and that may well be a lower rate. For example Ireland and Luxembourg have done well in gaming the whole corporation TAX system at the expense of taxes being paid fairly in other member countries.
Then whilst some countries have a good minimum wage, you can get around that by employing somebody on a contract in another EU members country and dealt with many good workers, working in the UK under contracts in another EU members country and by that, paid less than minimum wage.
So that will be good for tax income in the UK and also fairer and something the EU has needed to address for years and failing badly as the case against Apple shows - who consolidate the bulk of all their taxes into one single member state.
>As a European I hope UK will want to rejoin the EU.
I'd look at the UK voting record, the UK veto has been instrumental in blocking so many plans by the EU. If you had an employee who was 50% a good employee and the other 50%, disruptive and effecting all the other employee's - would you want to keep them on?
Thing is, the EU needed reform and been the case for near on a decade or more and even they know that. The UK (Cameron) went to the EU to do reforms, they said no and the UK had a vote. After the vote, many EU figureheads publicly said that the EU needed reform and Macron been championing that as it is needed.
However, in all that time the UK had the vote (many years ago now), has the EU gone - ok we are doing reform - this is the plan and we want to do this and that. HAD that happened, the UK would of had something to take back to the people and go - look, we voted to leave the EU - we ain't left yet, however they are changing and with that it is only fair we put this back to the people as things have changed. THAT would of seen the UK stay in the EU. But no, that didn't happen and case of the EU going we need reform, twiddle thumbs for years and years, and all that's been decided is that Macron will drive it once and only once the UK has left the EU.
I like the EU, I like the UK and honestly it is best for both of them to have a break as best for both overall. Certainly motivated the EU to do some reform and if they don't, the divided in many EU member's is at the stage that without a sit down and addressing the issues thru reform, the EU will just erode away.
Also the whole price/inflation - you do realise that many imports into the UK from the EU are products imported into the EU from outside - like china. So would often see products shipped to central Europe and warehoused and distributed from there. After all, they only need to pay import tax and duty in one member country. Once done they can go to any EU members state. So for some countries, that worked well and others, less so.
So will be a case of for example the HD I brought from Amazon the other week, which shipped from the deepest of France and took a week. Would ship from the UK as the manufacturer would have stocks locally now. Maybe it will be a little cheaper, though that would also cover extra warehouse space/staff in the UK to handle that instead of some warehouse in the EU that is not paying UK tax, land/building rent/taxes.... Now instead of a ship dropping of in the EU down in say Italy, it will be direct to the UK. That avoids lots of lorries/planes and the like shipping stuff from the EU to the UK. So the whole environmental aspect has many opportunities to be better than current. Don't overlook that.
Many things not thought out in the news or media when it comes to brexit - mostly it is all rhetoric and ignores the pro's as well as the con's and those pro's are with the uk and the eu in many ways. The EU for a start been able to get financial control rules move forward after decades of the UK roadblocking them.
But best way to put things about the UK leaving the EU, if you truly love somebody and they are better of without you then you have to let them go.
Now, twenty years from now, things will be worth reviewing though the UK and the EU will be far different places then and not all for the worst.
Fun times ahead. And no I didn’t vote for this shit show.
At least until the mic dropped and the consequences of their joke vote became clear.
Fear of Corbyn was a factor, but so was the “get on with it” sentiment
Obi-Wan Kenobi
I do recall some conversations (with Leave voters, no less!) where it was felt the government shouldn't have wasted our time asking us. It's not the public's job to understand the details of international relations, yet it was foisted on the people. In spite of that, the government got it's answer, so just do it!
I hope one day we can rejoin, and it doesn't break the UK into pieces, but right now I can't see the Union surviving.
For other people they genuinely believed the scapegoating the UK media had done for 20 years+
For others, a minority, they thought that this was a way of pushing the EU to reform some of its more silly practices (like moving parliament around for no reason)
The public were basically given no choice in 2019
But perhaps this might break some of the Amazon dominance and make way for other options - that would be a real benefit.
Also: the products are more expensive, which is what it costs for your neighbor to have a job and not unemployment.
I’d rather prefer it if that wasn’t the case for ref but I know British culture well enough to know that we’re lazy and selfish.
So what's all this 'comingling' thing about then? I assure you that if AMZN becomes dominant, customer service will get worse not better. Bezos is not a charity.
>I’d rather prefer it if that wasn’t the case for ref but I know British culture well enough to know that we’re lazy and selfish.
Substitute 'Romanian' for 'British' then ask if your racism still sounds OK to you.
As for your second point, that’s possibly the worst straw man I’ve ever heard.
What irks me the most is companies that have no presence in CH but who will ship to CH, and when you go to their website everything is 20–30% more expensive compared to their .de or .fr store (where vat is 20%!). Even though shipping is extra, and it all ships from the same warehouse in Germany or Ireland. Like misterspecs, or revolutioncycles.
Now for the rest...
Also many things I buy seem to buy from Amazon ship direct from China!
But fun times ahead, just remember to laugh ;).
This whole thing is an embarrassing own goal
Only the politicians did their jobs, unfortunately...
(And yes, I'm a cynic)
I'm not sure if in former times the press was just as opinionated and noone noticed. But now, people notice that the press isn't impartial and therefore just do not trust even the rare instances of impartial facts being presented.
(My point about Johnson was that he was genuinely paid more for a while as a Times "columnist" than as Prime Minister)
https://www.nytimes.com/1939/08/20/archives/herr-hitler-at-h...
Everyone noticed. It's one of the most frequently discussed things about the British (though not uniquely theirs) press for centuries, both in terms of explicit comment and implicit cultural reference (e.g., such as it being a recurring background element of fiction.)
His problem is that he's hopelessly naive and I don't think he realises that he's being used as the "nice guy" of Brexit.
I also feel particularly terrible for women across Europe who will less often be catcalled by drunken Brits. It’s really the end of an era.
Don't think you ever had to worry about that. ;)
This comment expresses an appalling amount of xenophobia and classism. This warped, cartoonish portrayal of "Brexit" voters on HN is not unexpected, but it is disappointing it seems to escape moderation.
However, it's simply incorrect to characterise the larger Brexit demographic as people who, majority living in the most deprived areas in the UK, voted for anything other than naive or misguided assumptions about the economic impact of EU membership.
It seems to be a fundamental political platform for all parties these days to dehumanise opponents over practicing the slightest bit of empathy.
While economic "freedom" was pushed by the official campaign, however, you can't deny the widespread publicity of the Nazi-esque "Breaking Point" poster. Anecdotally, I saw people pushing to vote Brexit to stop "the scum of Eastern Europe" from coming here and taxi drivers who voted Brexit to "kick the P*s out" (ethnic slur for Pakistani citizens).
The people airing these views weren't hardcore nationalists but regular working class people. Economic circumstances certainly made these voices louder (as hardship always causes populations to turn on "the other"), I will agree there.
For a good example of P* being used in a derogatory form, watch Bend it like Beckham, where it's used against an Indian girl because of the colour of her skin.
It's almost as if a Torie politican knowingly lied to win an election! I too am incredibly surprised... /s
This switch was done to a number of other European countries within the last decade (inc. Finland).
edit: OTOH, I just realized Ireland uses the UK electrical plug, which complicates buying electric stuff from amazon.de a bit...
Maybe asking a friend in Belfast to forward a parcel to Dublin will continue without any checks, but a parcel forwarding service is unlikely to go unnoticed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit_and_the_Irish_border#20...
I am very sceptical that they would do something like above, as there does not seem to be any reason to do so:
- Amazon encourages you to have stock on both sides of the border to allow selling to continue as-is after the transition - repatriating stock automatically would run counter to that.
- There is no legal reason to repatriate stock. The sellers that use Pan-European fulfillment already have to be VAT-registered in all countries that hold their stock, and those registrations will continue to be valid regardless of the EU membership of the seller's home country.
- Amazon has not communicated that it is planning to do so (it has only said that it will stop transfers and fulfillment cross-border on 2021-01-01).
In general it is likely that moving goods of any sort -- including one's own personal property -- from a member-state to the UK will from 1 January incur formalities, with a risk of substantial financial liability to the UK's revenue & customs agency by the UK person importing the goods even if that person is conceptually "re-importing" property.
Amazon also will want relief from liability under the law of bailment in England & Wales, and other specific contractual and statutory liability to the UK persons using the systems discussed in the article. The most obvious way to do that is for Amazon ("the bailee") to return the goods to any vendor in England or Wales ("the bailor"). The most obvious time to do that is well before 1 January after which either Amazon is exposed direct liability for import formalities or indirect liability to the (England-and-Wales) bailor.
Another obvious approach is to convince the bailors to waive their rights, effectively writing off their interest in the goods that are in the EU in Amazon's control, possibly for some financial consideration. However, Amazon cannot be certain that it can sell on any such goods because there is as yet no agreement on e.g. Origin (and documentation via certificate of origin) requirements, nor on the continued validity of safety marks and other product labelling. Although it's unlikely that anyone seriously wants existing arrangements to suddenly halt at the end of this year, there remains a risk that a substantial number of UK-sourced goods in the EU prior to the end of December may simply become unsellable in the single market in January (I am less sure about goods (esp. "Mode 5") sourced in the non-EU SM member-states or states that are non-EU&non-SM members of the European Customs Union (EUCU), or the bilateral CU states, and unfortunately somewhat failed at avoiding the trap of calling it all "EU" in this comment, and the trap of thinking the legal positions are probably homogeneous, i.e., there won't be operative side-deals between UK and Turkey before the end of December).
One very open set of questions involves "Mode 5" goods, wherein services are bundled with physical items. That includes warranties and guarantees for repairs, upgrade support including the upgrading of software that controls the physical items' operations, subscriptions bundled in with electronic book readers or the like, access to App Stores and similar. So far the UK government in particular has been focused on goods, not on services, including "Mode 5" services.
Flipping things around, Single Market vendors with bailments in England (and Wales) may be unable to guarantee the continuation of "Mode 5" commitments on goods in E&W. In E&W the retailer would be liable for making good on those commitments or on making the retail customer whole (e.g. by issuing a refund or replacement). FBA does not provide clear legal immunity from retail liability in E&W, and it is easy to imagine litigation brought by e.g. the Consumers Association and other bodies under the super-complaints procedure in the (UK) Enterprise Act 2002 if FBA goods purchased after 1 January cannot have software upgrades or lose access to SM-based customer support. (They are likely safe from liability for such goods if sold before the end of this year.)
(The law is somewhat different, and in relevant ways, in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but going into that would take too many characters :-) )
ETA: the issue here is the law of frustration of contract -- the expiration of the transition period in the withdrawal agreement may create frustrations notwithstanding careful drafting of contracts, and one possible result of a frustrated FBA contract is that the goods in question become involuntary bailments with Amazon as the bailee. This is a concrete risk for goods managed under contract with entities outside the UK.
Single Market sellers with goods pre-positioned in the UK would by default have access to UK courts if needed to exercise (or clarify) their rights as involuntary bailors. Thus it is possibly in Amazon UK's interests to move SM-vendor goods from the UK to an Amazon EU facility in the Single Market or return it to the SM-based person who is the vendor, and to do so before the end of the year and with the consent of the SM vendors.
Edit: to be clearer about what my point is, Amazon relies enormously on friction-free shipping. It might make more sense for them to plan not to ship across a border for a while until it becomes clear what the logistics will be of shipping across that border, rather than guessing what it will be like and getting it horribly wrong. The possible outcomes range from a decent free-trade agreement with minimal disruption (although that seems vanishingly unlikely now) to a hard Brexit (i.e. no agreement) and an immediate sharp stop to frictionless cross-border trade.
A couple years ago Switzerland changed the rules that companies shipping to Switzerland must collect and administer Swiss VAT and companies the size of Amazon said fuck it! and thus don't ship from the US any more. I suspect that the same goes for Amazon Japan.
This year the government mandated that international sellers registered for VAT and Amazon has registered all their local stores in Norway
Or I can order with slow cheap shipping and stand in line and pay VAT myself at the post office.
Either way, they will (mostly) ship. What's different with Switzerland?
Regarding your "shipping to Australia" example - that is just regular fulfillment of Amazon.com orders from US stock, with an international destination address. That will continue to work in all EU/UK marketplaces, this change is only about fulfilling e.g. amazon.de orders from UK stock and vice-versa (EFN) and cross-border movement of not-yet-sold stock (Pan-European FBA).
Regarding EFN: There is already a similar cross-border program called Amazon Global Store, where Amazon ships e.g. US stock to amazon.co.uk buyers (example: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00AFTQ4X8). It also works for 3rd-party sellers, in which case Amazon buys the item for itself in US and then ships it to the customer in UK ("Allow Amazon to buy my products to sell globally" in Amazon US seller settings). However, this is much more limited in scope of products compared to what EFN currently is, and those items do not currently ship "internationally" (e.g. I can't order a Global Store item from amazon.co.uk to Finland like I can with EFN items).
Regarding Pan-European FBA: I believe Amazon does not want to move non-sold 3rd-party stock across customs jurisdictions, or at least it has never done that before. Shipping sold items to end-customers (which they do, e.g. Australia example above) is a bit easier, as e.g. valuing the items is easy (it is exactly the amount the customer paid), and Amazon never has to be at the receiving end.
In EU you have free movement of goods and people, so if I buy from Amazon DE, FR, IT, the item will be shipped and moved around EU territory and easily get delivered to my door.
If I buy from Amazon.com I'll get an email from the customs where they ask me for proof of purchase where the proper taxation/custom fees were paid. This is what will happen in with products coming from the UK. This means the package is being processed by a foreign entity with no time window to be released (because part of it will depend on you as well).
Amazon simply cannot keep UK in their european fulfillment network warehouses because it will have items go through customs. It would be a bottleneck in a seamless movement of products. It's not about geography, it's about crossing borders.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/18/eu-leaders-rec...
Amazon in Europe is small, having <10% of the e-commerce marketshare (compared to >50% in the US). For example, in the Netherlands people are much more likely to shop at Bol, Coolblue or Wehkamp.
It's yet another headwind for smaller UK companies, that will see their potential serviceable available market (SAM) get smaller, unless they spend extra. This will also significantly increase the time for the goods to arrive to EU destinations.
You calling this "americentric" is also weird. It's going to be the same situation for all other e-commerce sites, no?
https://www.emarketer.com/content/amazon-remains-the-undispu...
https://www.onlinehaendler-news.de/online-handel/marktplaetz...