What is Your Greatest Barrier or Challenge to Selling Internationally?

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I have been invited to an event at the House of Commons next week, and I would like to share your challenges with the attendees.

This is a unique opportunity to have our voices heard:

  • the micro-businesses and solopreneurs
  • the hobby sellers with great ambitions
  • the makers of all ages
  • the people juggling employment, family and a creative business

All too often, when the powers that be talk about “small businesses” they are referring to their own grossly inflated definition (gov.uk):

“a company that meets at least two out of three criteria: a turnover of £10.2 million or less, a balance sheet total of £5.1 million or less, and fewer than 50 employees”

Sounds a little pie in the sky for us “little people”… and we never get any consideration!

Context

My invitation has come from The Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade, with whom I have been sharing my experiences (and challenges!) of becoming GPSR compliant. The purpose of the Chartered Institute is to empower organisations and equip individuals with the expertise to trade effectively, sustainably and competitively.

This will be a Parliamentary roundtable lunch on ‘Women in Exports’ on Wednesday 23rd April. This event seeks to bring together women-led businesses and policymakers to discuss issues such as access to finance, challenges and opportunities in exporting and what further support is needed for exporters to thrive.

Alison Griffiths MP will be the host for this event. Alison is the Member of Parliament for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and member of the Business and Trade Committee, which scrutinises the policy, spending and administration of the Department for Business and Trade and its public bodies.

The Chief Executive of UK Export Finance will also be at the event, and he will provide his advice on how UKEF can support women-led businesses with access to finance.

So please tell me what challenges you face, and what you would like me to share

I’m confident GPSR will be a hot potato, and I anticipate a few common themes below, but are there other things specific to your items or situation?

  • Cost of shipping
  • Complexity of customs reporting/identifying HS Codes
  • Cost of customs charges (paid by the customer)
  • Cost of returns
  • Packaging Registrations Costs for the EU (new legislation currently being rolled out)
  • Lack of information to adjust to changes - e.g. the last minute panic about GPSR
  • Finding information about what YOU need to do to send your work internationally - official and unofficial sources
  • Something completely different!

I look forward to finding out what I don’t know, and being able to share what was discussed at the event with you afterwards.

Sophie

x

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What a great opportunity Sophie - well done and thank you for getting a seat at the table to represent us all.

For me, your summary really covers all my concerns. Pre-Brexit, I posted worldwide and am now restricted to just a handful of coutries outside the UK (ex. NI) due to legislation that’s it’s unrealistic to comply with, or sometimes even understand / translate to micro business level. Exports and UK export law is a great example of this - when you look for information in the guidance issued, it doesn’t even seem to acknowledge the possibility of a very small business shipping a wholesale order abroad but more pallet sized B2B sales.

I really do wish that they would properly recognise the micro business by developing a definition for it and taking it into account when assessing all matters pertaining to doing business from the UK. Whilst having a definition won’t change anything directly, perhaps it would at least get it on the table so that when rules and guidance are being prepared, they can be scaled for all sizes of business.

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Aside from the issues already mentioned, I don’t ship outside the UK because Royal Mail and Parcelforce, and all other carriers as far as I am aware (apart from specialist art shippers which cost beyond the price of my average item) will not insure ceramics for damage during transit, only loss of parcel. I don’t feel I can take the risk. Well done for being invited and thanks for asking all of us for our opinions.

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Thanks Debbie - I’m not sure if my efforts will be in vain, but if I don’t try, it would be such a waste of an opportunity.
Totally agree with your second point - we are the invisible businesses!

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Judy this is a brilliant example of “what I don’t know”, thank you so much for sharing.
And nope, I wouldn’t want to take that risk either!

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I’m the same I have gone from shipping everywhere to losing customers in EU as i cant make head nor tail of the legislation since brexit. More recent changes have made it impossible for small handcrafted businesses like us to ship to EU and NI and the cost of a representative far outways the benefits of a few potential orders anyway.
I still ship to the US, Canada, Australia but no doubt some of those will see changes and eventually we will lose all overseas customers and be restricted to the UK only.

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It used to be the EU packaging directives and now it’s GPSR too. I was just about managing to jump through all the other hoops until those came along. There seems to be no recognition of the disproportionate impacts on microbusinesses. Thank you for your efforts on our behalf!

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This is such a cool opportunity for you! (Also depressing the government needs to hear that not all small businesses are working in the millions of pounds…)

Everything you’ve mentioned is why I don’t ship to outside GB anymore. I got my head around tariff codes when my shop was open 2014-2021 and could do so again (reopened late last year) but the cost of shipping is prohibitive given I make stationery and accessories and the postage costs considerably more than the items are worth.

The complexities of shipping providers are also part of it. I shipped a signed copy of one of my books to a giveaway winner in the USA last week using Royal Mail and it cost £26. According to the teller, if I’d asked my winner’s phone number I could have shipped with DPD instead of Royal Mail for half the price, but I’ve been out of the game for so long that I completely forgot DPD was an option or that I could have asked my winner for extra details. I’m not adverse to paying for a decent service - as mentioned, some alternatives are just terrible in quality - but there is a limit to what my customers will pay for postage and I can’t absorb extra costs because there’s a limit to what I can charge for a greetings card.

I also can’t keep up with legal requirements fast enough to ensure that my packaging and paperwork are in order and won’t get my customer slapped with unexpected charges. Between GPSR, the orange man’s tariff shenanigans and the quagmire of Brexit rules, it’s not worth my time to bother opening to international orders. Which is a shame because orders to the USA used to make up a good chunk of my turnover - around half if I recall correctly - and that income is gone. Realistically in 2026 I’ll concentrate on digital items and offerings on places that aren’t marketplace sites like Folksy, because digital items are less of a headache (so things like ebooks, my Patreon page, digital files). They have a lower price point as a rule, but the sites I use, like Patreon or my book publication platform, take care of local taxes for me so I can focus on making a quality product and providing things my audience wants to see, as opposed to tying myself in knots over the correct tariff code for an HB pencil. Which is a shame because I love making physical items, but if my audience for physical items is limited to the UK then I don’t know if it’s worth my time or money to invest in them.

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Debby - I share your experience, you’re by no means alone! x

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I completely agree with you!
I fully understand the reasoning for GPSR, and from that POV it’s a great thing - preventing unsafe products from reaching the market.
However whilst it’s purpose is to target mass scale, poor quality manufacture - it’s the little people paying the price, both us AND our EU counterparts.

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Francesca, it really does feel like a bit of a “perfect storm” doesn’t it?
I hear you on the shipping costs - this is a very common theme that’s cropping up everywhere that I’ve shared this request for seller’s experiences.

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Also Sophie, not sure if you’re already aware of it but the Crafts Council had a survey of makers earlier this year and will have some interesting insight to challenges too. I don’t know if they are going to be represented? Here’s a link to the survey: Crafts Council's Makers Survey report in case you don’t know about it.

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Oh Debbie! I completely forgot about that… and I even filled in that survey!!!
Have just downloaded the report, that will definitely give me something to read on the train down.
Thank you so much for the reminder, this is a hugely useful document! :smiley:

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thanks so much for asking us, Sophie. I hope you find the event enjoyable, interesting as well as useful. I expect to receive information pertaining to changes such as the GPSR * and tariff codes from the HMRC website, or through Gov.uk - I sign up to all the options I can, but I haven’t been able to find anything there specifically aimed at micro business (ie those of us with turnovers less than 100K). It would be really helpful if they could add an area for us to then sign up for information like that - in the same way as they have for ‘making tax digital’ which I’ve found to be really handy.
(*distinctly lacking!! ) Thank you again. Hugs, Dawn

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Oh Dawn! I can’t tell you the number of conversations I’ve had on this topic!

One of the suggest I made that DBT and HMRC should talk to other and use details of people who are registered as self employed - sole trader or Ltd - to share updates of new legislation etc.

They send me an email to remind me to do my tax return - so there’s clearly a list! LOL

As an aside, the most useful GPSR related info I found was from The Export Academy run by Department of Business and Trade.

They have been running regular webinars presented by an expert on GPSR compliance. The presenter also provides GPSR services and their website has lots of info too.

However, there’s still ZERO info about the new packaging regulations, so we’re all left on the back foot.

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Another example would be the HMRC hastily cobbled together requirement for sales platforms to submit digital returns of their sellers.. with very little differentiation between BIG businesses and small ones (and by all accounts with a faulty data submission service too !).
The ‘Government’ need to understand that their are more ‘sizes’ of business than just Massive and Small…and make allowance for that. The upcoming
requirement for digital tax returns Will affect some tiny businesses and will add another admin task and financial cost to already struggling small businesses.

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On the subject of digital products, was there ever any answer to the question of whether sellers of (e.g.) knitting patterns had to comply with GPSR?

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I have nothing to add that hasn’t already been covered, but wanted to say this sounds like a fantastic opportunity, and I look forward to hearing how it goes. Well done you for getting involved and securing a place at the event.

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Couldn’t agree with you more re: classification of business sizes - especially when there are SO many of us!
I feel this is our super power - strength in numbers - hence coming here to ask for your experiences and stories.
Your point about digital tax returns is very valid - and I genuinely don’t understand the benefit of the scheme for micro-businesses like ours.
Far more tax revenue could be raised by going after The BIG Boys!

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I understand that it does - there is an update on the Folksy blog with links to info from 11/12/2024 - GPSR - What you need to know as an artist or maker on Folksy | Folksy Blog

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