finds bases at the dollar store!It's "fun" being a small manufacturer trying to negotiate international rules and regulations nowadays. The latest thing thrown at us is a new regime of customs duties being levied by the E.U. on all packages originating outside of the Union. This is presumably aimed at the likes of Temu, Shein, AliExpress, et al, but, of course, being a rather blunt instrument, it hammers the little guys as well.
The initial implementation sees a €3.00 EUR duty added to every parcel from outside the E.U. for each different HS code on the customs declaration. Fortunately most of our packages have a single HS code (we use 9503003000 – reduced scale models – for the E.U.) so we should only incur one charge, but nevertheless it means that we'll have to add that to each order. There's no way for us to add this separately in our website code, so it'll be bundled into the shipping costs and won't show separately on the invoice. If you require an invoice that shows this fee separately, please let us know and we can manually edit your invoice to show this as a line item separate from the shipping charges. For any orders that require a second HS code (which will happen if you order a book from us), we'll contact you with a payment request for the extra duty. Our E.U. shipping charges needed updating anyway to reflect recent changes in courier fees (they've gone up slightly, but not by much), so we've done this all at once. The regulations took effect yesterday so the new charges are already in place.
One important thing we should point out is that we'll continue to make sure that, whatever taxes, duties and fees are leveled at us, we'll ensure that they're all paid up-front, and once your order is placed and paid for, you won't get stung for any further fees. We collect them all at check-out, and pay them to the relevant authorities when your package reaches the E.U. Your courier won't ask for any additional fees before delivery.
As much as we'd love to absorb these costs, with everything else rising around us, we just can't do that (if you've five minutes, we'd love to tell you how AI data centers are cornering much of the world's supply of tin, and forcing up the price we pay for our casting metal at a exponential rate).