GPSR Compliance

[bojangled]

This is as clear as mud to me. Been to the gov. advice website and various others.
How does a 1972 poster fit in to this process?

It's not an exempt category. 

Advise buyers this item is for viewing only ? 

My initial reaction, sadly, to to switch EU and NI off. 
Jo

[bzmotman]

Personally I couldnt care less whether its Ebay or EU mafia. All I am interested in is making it work for me.

The big issue with "private sellers" is , as we all know, many of them arent private but businesses pretending to be private to get free listings, avoid obligations etc. Now if Ebay dont sort them out they will be able to list items that law abiding business sellers can't. Perhaps the answer is for more sellers to give up paying Ebay the monthly subscription & become a "private seller" thereby giving Ebay a loss of income.

[4_bathrooms]

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@bzmotman wrote:

They have NOT applied it to the relevent categories. Try doing a test listing in Antiques & you will get asked for the GPSR disclosures when they are quite clearly exempt.

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I just tried creating a test listing in Antiques and I'm offered the following (pertinent) item specifics:

Age - I selected the "1900 - 1940" option

Antique - This is a strange one. It is pre-filled as "Yes" but it isn't a yes or no option; it appears to be a free text field.

Another observation is if I click the link to add a custom item specific the default entry for the specific name is "Year" whilst the default entry for the specific value is "2017". I have no idea if adding this information has any impact but it is curious the default values for a new item specific relate to a given year.

Someone creating a new antique listing should try the above; i.e. also entering the custom "Year" item specific with a year prior to 1924. It would be interesting to hear whether eBay requested compliance information or not. I don't think there's any point editing an existing listing as once a listing has triggered some sort of request from eBay they normally don't let go of it.  

[lookinpandorasbox]

Some info here-

 

[bzmotman]

I have just truied again to "list" a piece of antique furniture. Confirmed Antique in the yes/no box, put 1868 as date of manufacture. Get to the end & guess what - the GPSR boxes are still there waiting to be completed.

Now it may be that the Antique & year may override GPSR when its actually listed but on the face of it GPSR data is required.

Next I had a look at a Queen Victoria stamp. Year of issue 1881-1901, Monarch Queen Victoria 1837-1901. This time only the following came up Take Back policy, Economic Operator & additional disclosures so still asking for info that should not be required.

Really dont know what to say other than it appears to be a complete shambles at the moment.

[russellmattin]

I totally agree, nobody is clear on it, I also sell old leaflets stamps and maps and I cant possibly produce safety info and a stamp can hardly be dangerous! EU has, as usual, gone completely mad so I will stop selling there and its a good job we left otherwise it would apply to all our sales in the UK!!!! - that would put me out of business

[russellmattin]

I quite agree!

[pillarboxred]

I feel the same way although "aircraft, drugs and pesticides" are highly regulated and are they even listable on eBay? With a population of nearly 70 million there ought to be a buyer for most collectables within the UK though not perhaps at the highest price but listing UK only might not be a disaster. I hate sending cheap heavy items abroad because the postage is high and the 10% fee taken from the grand total  the buyer has paid  plus the listing and promotion fee can wipe out a small profit and a lower UK Final Value would be better.

[tascio1]

I've been getting messages from a buyer in NI as I've now removed NI from my listings. Seems ebay haven't bothered to inform those buyers of the GPSR commitments:

'It's very clear Dave.Goods to NI go through green lane at customs. No charge and usual postage cost. Simple.That's all the information you need.
Ignore ebay they have abosulatly no idea. Sell or not to NI ? that's your choice but I suggest simply checking out Royal Mail.'

[tascio1]

He also couldn't find anywhere to complain so asked me to pass this on to ebay (!!):

'Options for my complaint were not available,so I've complained here.
Hopefully you can pass it on.

This seller has refused to sell to Northern Ireland despite it being part of the UK
with the same postage cost.
Hopefully it's just ignorance rather than biggetory or racism.
Please treat this seriously.'

[petstation1989]

These boards are going to be swamped in December.

I'm suddenly getting loads of orders from Northern ireland and realised it's because my competitor has blocked them. I'll have to do the same at some point because if i'm honest i've got no idea what i'm doing.

[giftgrab]

The eBay guidelines and advice seems to be spot on and correct.

However, what we need (and this should have already been done to avoid all this unnecessary panic) is official communication stating that if we remove NI and EU on listings that they will be safe from being hit by GPSR regs. 

we all have to buy stock for peak and our businesses need consistency from the platform.  we need to be allowed to have calm and precise understanding running up to the busy period. 

we can then all expand into NI/EU when we have documents and at our own pace.

come on eBay just give us that one piece of information we are awaiting? 

thanks

[555njp]

Just send over the link to the regulations, or perhaps this thread?

whilst it crossed my mind too that I could probably get away with shipping small spares over to NI as letter/LL via RM, the problem for eBay is the potentially severe punishment for non-compliance. 
In a nutshell, we as sellers could advertise a product to NI and fill in a load of rubbish in the required fields. Item would sell to NI, go via RM and let's be honest, be very unlikely to be checked at customs.

However, if eBay as the platform are caught offering ANYTHING that fails compliance for sale to EU or NI (In any single country) the potential punishment is huge fine, with, should it continue, removal of the website from that country!! 

This is why I'm sure that big players offering millions of items for sale (I.e. eBay) have no choice but to blanket block all sorts of commodities as the risk to the business as the rules stand at present could literally bring the site down.

[555njp]

Just another thought regarding interpretation of GPSRs.

I have posted already about being asked of GPSR compliance fields on my Private Account.

The regs say people selling privately to EU and NI are exempt.

I'm wondering though if a private account holder lists an item on eBay for sale in EU/NI, would that advert count as business? Because technically eBay (the business) is making the item available/visible to EU/NI buyers via its website which is of course a business.

Might explain why why I'm being asked for compliance on my private account as well as my business?

Currently just switched the toggles to 'off' and it allows me to list.

[4_bathrooms]

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@bzmotman wrote:

Next I had a look at a Queen Victoria stamp. Year of issue 1881-1901, Monarch Queen Victoria 1837-1901. This time only the following came up Take Back policy, Economic Operator & additional disclosures so still asking for info that should not be required.

That's interesting. I thought all the GPSR fields appeared no matter what the listing was but it seems some fields are missing from certain categories. I would guess if the item specifics indicate the item is over 100 years old the GPSR information ceases to be mandatory.

The fields appear even if NI and the EU are excluded from the list of shipping locations in every possible location (postage policies, GSP etc). My guess is all listings are configured to require GPSR information unless something such as the category, postage/shipping settings, item age etc. means eBay aren't obliged to obtain it. 

[4_bathrooms]

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@tascio1 wrote:

'It's very clear Dave. Goods to NI go through green lane at customs. No charge and usual postage cost. Simple.That's all the information you need.

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It isn't simple. The current green lane system is mostly for agri-food, vetinary and pharmaceutical products. The full green lane system will not be operational until later this month; most goods will still need an entry summary declaration (which is not a customs procedure) when being shipped from GB to NI.

In order for a GB business to send goods to an NI consumer they will first need to register with the Trader Support Service (TSS). Then they need to register with the UK Carrier Scheme (UKC) and enter the TSS as their authorised NI representative during the registration process. eBay should also accept the TSS as the seller's authorised representative for sales to Northern Ireland (the TSS will not be their authorised representative for the EU). However, I'm not sure any of this prevents the seller from needing to comply with the GPSRs when sending goods to Northern Ireland.

The idea there was ever going to be some sort of green lane for anything sent from GB to NI was always complete rubbish despite how the picture of such an arrangement under the Windsor Framework was originally painted.

[pillarboxred]

All I can say is "cross this bridge when we come to it".  If we try to sell safe, legitimate goods that do not cause problems to consumers,  or we place warnings on things like "lead-glazed pottery Not for Food Use",  a legal issue is unlikely to arise. Selling to the UK and the Rest of the World will produce reasonable results unless we are determined to sell "Camembert" to the French and "Frankfurters" to the Germans. If eBay boots us off for non-compliance that will be too bad for them and us. Europeans might stop shopping eBay UK if they can't get our items but that would  be a problem for corporate eBay, not me nor you as individuals.

[pillarboxred]

I wonder whether we could appoint an EU bigwig as the Economic Operator and give them something useful to do. 😈 It might make them look into the issue. 

[bojangled]

It seems the US sellers have only just become aware of this judging by a couple of YT channels. 

[giftgrab]

Currently we are all trusted to provide safe CE/UKCA products and if we are found not to be then we would face consequences. 

I haven't seen this discussed as yet, but we as part of starting and maintaining a business we have all put a huge amount of sweat and tears into sourcing and placing good products at good value. Be that handmade (multiple supplier parts to a single product) or the product as it is. Or even companies that import. 

stating all of our manufacturer and supplier information, essentially points competition straight to our sources and contacts, and I was wondering what other people thought of this point? 

[tps1996]

Even when you do decide to conform to the GPSR requirement you still can't complete the necessary requirements via Bulk Edit because yet another thing is broken.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/selling/hazardous-materials-labeling?id=5407

Maybe they're intentionally hiding it so we don't sell anywhere other than within the UK.