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Brexit: we tried to send a package to the UK ...

2021-01-12T07:13:41.139Z


With Brexit, it is now time for customs formalities before sending a package to the United Kingdom. Deadlines, prices ... At the Post Office for the hour


Brexit, what concrete consequences in our lives?

To get an initial answer, I decided to test a very simple shipment from Paris to the United Kingdom: 15 euros worth of chocolates for my niece, a student in London.

After standing in line for 30 minutes (it's Monday, there are a lot of people), the postman gives me two forms to fill out: in addition to the traditional dispatch slip, there is now the new customs declaration entitled "Invoice pro forma ”or“ Invoice declaration ”.

In addition to the sender and receiver, I am asked for the “detailed description of contents”, quantity, unit value of the product and its total value.

No customs document online

Once the document has been completed, the postman suggests that I go frank my 800 grams of chocolates using the machine.

Bad luck, it does not work: when filling in the information on the package (value and weight in particular), the machine stalls.

No possibility to fend for yourself on the machine, nor, moreover, to prepare everything at home, as was previously possible: a grandmother who used to print her Colissimo vouchers and then pay online from home she, before coming just to drop off her packages here, arrives in a pestilence, because she cannot find the customs document online.

For the United Kingdom, the postman is therefore our best friend.

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We ask him if it is necessary to privilege a fast shipment by Chronopost, or a traditional Colissimo, without commitment of time.

"For the moment, we have no information, apart from the fact that you have to fill in the customs part", he warns me, "but for the deadlines, if you want it to happen within three days, there is only Chronopost.

Otherwise it is the simple package, but there is no guaranteed time, and it can even get blocked at customs ”.

Budget constrained, I decide to test the normal package anyway.

Has there been any initial feedback from customers?

“It's very long, before it took between 5 and 7 days, now it's much more, especially since because of the Covid variant, they open, they close, etc.

"In the meantime, he advises my neighbor" for the next shipments "to buy" bigger boxes, because you have to be able to stick the two papers on them now. "

It's like the United States ”.

3 euros extra for formalities

What about the price?

Is it more expensive than before?

I ask the question several times, he gets angry: "We haven't been told anything yet".

In fact, obviously, no information was given to them on this subject that we could however anticipate.

For my Colissimo International, I end up paying 20.95 euros for a parcel worth 15 euros… Damn.

Asked after the fact, the Post office tells us that there is indeed an additional cost since January 1 of 3 euros for parcels, "in order to compensate for the new customs formalities".

Last online simulation: what if I had chosen to send my chocolates by Chronopost?

For a parcel to the European Union the price is 49 euros for one kilo.

But for the United Kingdom, it now takes 13 euros more, or 62 euros, because this shipment requires an envelope stamped ... "World".

Source: leparis

All business articles on 2021-01-12

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