Reply To: Brexit realities in the hobby Industry!

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I think Battle Systems have taken the correct stance here. We’ve all become used (here in the UK) to being able to order from the EU with no custom fees and/or import duty, it was only ordering stuff from the USA that used to trigger all the extra fees. Now we’re going to get hit with all the Duty no matter where we’re ordering from. And for UK companies (particularly the smaller ones) it’s going to be impossible for them to keep track of things in each destination address worldwide. So treating the EU like the rest of the world (customer pays duty and local VAT) is the only way they can forge ahead without getting swamped with paperwork.

The hobby just got more expensive (again), but when things settle down I wonder if we’ll start to see UK distributors (and EU distributors) start to crop up in the industry to get past this trade barrier. The answer to that I suppose is if there’s only going to be any significant savings by doing so (which I doubt there will be). Instead it’s going to be companies manufacturing under licence within the EU and the UK to achieve any savings in production and distribution (and the margins in doing so were pretty meagre before all this shenanigans).

So better keep cash on the shelf for the postie if you plan to order anything from the EU (as EU companies will probably have to do the same as Battle Systems and keep out of the quagmire the Brexit has bought upon us 🙁 )