Irish online customers with smaller UK retailers need to check if their purchases can get through customs

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but it might not be a happy one for tens of thousands of Irish shoppers who bought gifts online from small British retailers only for the packages to be sent back due to a customs row involving both countries’ post offices.

An Post took the unusual step on Monday of publicly criticising its UK state-owned counterpart, the Post Office, for failing to implement the technology required under European Union customs rules. An Post said the issue was damaging the trade of British SME exporters. Perhaps more pertinently for An Post’s local customers, it is also causing havoc for Irish residents awaiting delivery of packages.

If a small British retailer drops off a package at a local post office for delivery to an Irish online customer through the postal system, it needs a 10-digit code added to the packaging to give crucial EU customs information. Without it, the package is unlikely to make it through at the Irish end. The UK Post Office has, so far, failed to implement the system. The issue does not affect bigger retailers such as BooHoo or Amazon, which make their own arrangements outside of the normal postal system.

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The Customs 2020 regime for packages sent through the post from outside the EU was meant to stem inward trade from big Chinese online retailers such as Wish, which posts huge amounts of cheap goods to EU countries. However, it has ended up causing havoc for many online shoppers in Ireland, the first EU country to implement the system, over purchases made from small British businesses.

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The rules on postal trade between Britain and Ireland go Europe-wide next month. When that happens, and if small British retailers struggle to get their exports into any EU country without adding codes at post offices, then pressure will increase upon the British system to comply.

In the meantime, Irish buyers of goods from the websites of small British retailers should check with the company if they are able to ensure that the EU Customs 2020 code is added. Without this, it might be a blue, blue Christmas if those presents ordered online fail to arrive.