Shipping to the EU
Last updated: 19 April 2023
WARNING: Customers in the EU must pay VAT and a handling fee when their order arrives in their country. Customers are responsible for paying any and all tax, duty and handling fees on their orders.
Etsy shop for EU customers
Fighting 15s has an Etsy shop to help our EU customers. It offers a means of buying Fighting 15s’ products duty pre-paid, which benefits some customers in the EU. For others, and for large orders, it may be worth taking the hit on customs fees and VAT by ordering from our main shop.
Our Etsy shop only contains items from our 15mm Generation 5GZ range. You may order other items from the main Fighting 15s shop via Etsy using Etsy’s custom order process. First set up an Etsy account if you do not already have one. Then use either the custom order request button on our Etsy shop page or send a message using the Message link on our Etsy shop page, and let us know what you would like. We can then put together a custom order and send you a link to it on Etsy.
Because of the fees charged by Etsy, all prices there are about 25% higher there compared with the UK tax-inclusive prices on the main Fighting 15 site. That’s why a large order may be better placed through our main site.
Our Etsy shop is here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Fighting15s
EU customers and Fighting15s.com
Fighting 15s ships to the EU, with the advice that delivery may take one to two months.
Fighting 15s deducts VAT from prices for EU customers once the shop knows the customer’s country, so EU customers will pay VAT only once on import. The shop uses geolocation software, so may automatically detect a customer’s country. Country detection otherwise relies on the delivery country chosen in the shopping cart.
Customs laws introduced on 1 July 2021 mean that all commercial shipments from non-EU countries are charged VAT on import to the EU. There are no exemptions for items of low value. Payment of VAT and the handling fee are usually dealt with by the mail service or by a courier service for the respective EU country. The mail or courier service acts as a collecting agent.
Collecting agents charge a handling fee that varies hugely from country to country. For some countries this charge is low (under 3 euros in Finland, 6 euros in Germany and 75 SEK in Sweden), but for others it is so expensive as to make small orders a luxury (over 13 euros in The Netherlands, 24 euros in Belgium). The main effect of Brexit is to make our EU customers all too painfully aware of these fees.
Duty paid delivery, whereby EU customers would be charged VAT in the shop and have all customs and handling fees paid in advance, is not financially viable for a business the size of Fighting 15s. Our only solution to this is currently offered via our Etsy shop.
International updates
Royal Mail’s International Incident Bulletin provides the latest information about shipping to destinations outside the UK. See:
https://personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5317/~/international-incident-bulletin