Home › Forums › Buying and Selling › Selling on eBay › Sales and Exports of products with a CE symbol to the European Union
- This topic has 6 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 10 months ago by
Antique Frog.
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04/13/2021 at 11:34 pm #87474
Anybody have a clue what this is all about?
“We want to provide an update regarding plans by the European Union to enhance enforcement of product compliance, which will impact US sellers selling to buyers in the EU. The EU Regulations on market surveillance, together with the Guidelines for its practical implementation, established the legal framework for customs or regulators to verify and enforce requirements of EU product compliance including the CE symbol (see image below) which is a certification by manufacturers that the products meet EU legal and safety standards.
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Starting July 16, 2021, CE-marked products sold into the EU, will require an “economic operator” established in the EU. (Economic operators are responsible for working with authorities by providing technical information or taking certain action for the products.) An economic operator can be a manufacturer, importer, authorized representative or a fulfilment service provider. Most larger brands of CE-marked products will have an economic operator already established in the EU.
You will be required to ensure the name and contact details of the EU economic operator are listed on the product or in the product packaging. (This information generally accompanies new in-box items manufactured or imported for the EU market.) If the products you ship to the EU don’t contain this information, your goods may be stopped at customs or prevented from being delivered to your buyer.
eBay is working to obtain more information as well as options for sellers who sell goods that do not have an economic operator. Please visit our Help Hub page for the latest updates.
As always, thanks for selling on eBay,
Your eBay Team”
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04/14/2021 at 12:47 am #87476
I literally just had to deal with something like this tonight on Etsy. I was shipping an item to the UK and was told I now have to collect VAT tax for them or have an operator due so. It turns out that Etsy does do this for sellers now, but I had to include the Etsy VAT tax collection number on the outside of the package as well on a printed receipt showing the VAT paid to Etsy as well as their operator number. In the end, I made the sale but it was a pain in the neck having to research all of this. I assume your situation is something similar where eBay will collect the taxes and you’ll have to relay that somehow to customs. Hope that makes sense. Be interesting to keep an eye on this all!
PS: Etsy says this has to do with the whole Brexit situation.
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04/14/2021 at 5:28 pm #87486
Ebay now inserts a code line in the address to UK buyers that I assume alerts customs that VAT is paid. A recent buyer’s address had an extra line in the middle that looked like this:
Wideopen GB 365 6085 76 Code:Paid
Unfortunately that makes UK address have too many lines to enter and too many digits in the line if using Shippo etc but I made it work.
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04/14/2021 at 8:24 am #87480
Etsy says this has to do with the whole Brexit situation.
Yes, dealers importing vintage and antique goods from Europe into the UK also have problems bringing goods in, due to customs regs and VAT being imposed due to Brexit.
[Insert profane vitriol-laced rant against Brexit and Brexiters here]
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04/14/2021 at 3:16 pm #87485
If you pick up any electrical item you’ll see a number of symbols on them. In the U.S, most products have an UL symbol. Depending on the item you might see an FCC symbol. These things indicate that they meet U.S health and safety guidelines. The CE symbol is a similar concept in Europe. (Many thing imported into the US will also have the CE symbol as they are sold worldwide). It sounds like the E.U might be introducing more enforcement. The CE certification doesn’t apply to all products but it does apply to anything with a potential safety aspect like toys and electrical. CE info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking
I don’t know what would be required in the case of a pre-owned product (eg: without original packaging) under the new guidelines.
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04/14/2021 at 5:42 pm #87487
As a rule, I do not offer international shipping on electrical or electronics items, not wanting to add the international complication to the frequent returns and flaky buyers in electronics, and electrical items won’t work in many other countries anyway. This sounds like another reason to continue to do so.
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04/15/2021 at 1:57 am #87497
@temudgin Back in the 1980s I bought a Canon inkjet printer from a shop on Tottenham Court Road in London at a hefty discount from the list price. It was imported from the US, and and then an uncased mains transformer was wired into the mains lead.
Now the UK’s out of the EU, and we don’t have to have no stinkin’ CE badge on things I look forward to being able to purchase dishwashers, hoovers, flat irons and the like once again attached to uncased mains transformers.
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