Is there a way to exclude Northern Ireland

[the-ephemera-company]

Is there a way to exclude Northern Ireland as a destination I will ship to. I just can't be doing with all the extra paperwork.

I use click and drop for my labels and the customs form you are now presented with has so many boxes that need codes in as I am a business.

I already exclude Europe as I have had so many items try to be charged VAT on even though the customer has already paid it when they purchased. Despite the label and customs form information being fed directly from eBay to Royal Mail.

I can't find an exclude Northern Ireland box.

[tressygirl · Accepted solution]

There is,   go to your Site Preferences,  link below,  and you can exclude NI

https://www.ebay.co.uk/ship/prf

@the-ephemera-company 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Surely you need to change your postage policies as they can vary on different policies.

Regardless of base settings.

[the-ephemera-company]

Many Thanks

Found it and changed it.

Nick

[tressygirl]

You're welcome.

@the-ephemera-company 

[station13thirteen]

Well, we excluded NI on each of our postage policies due to the confusing and time-consuming GSPR issue. However, and rather annoyingly, we are still getting buyers from NI.  This is a real pain as we just don't have time to waste filling in the GSPR form that Royal Mail automatically show when they recognise a NI postcode.

We've double-checked that NI has been excluded on our eBay postage policies - it is - but this seems to have made no difference whatsoever... Just great!

Frustratingly something else on eBay that doesn't work as it should!!

[njbaxtu0]

if the goods are sold to an to a customer in NI for private use, not sold to a business, and items aren't restricted, then shouldnt need to declare anything at all

[keagnes2012]

I don’t think you need to fill in forms when posting to Northern Ireland as it comes under the United Kingdom and is part of the United Kingdom just like England Scotland and Wales.

[keagnes2012]

Or maybe you can, I’m not to sure about this one.

[station13thirteen]

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@njbaxtu0 wrote:

if the goods are sold to an to a customer in NI for private use, not sold to a business, and items aren't restricted, then shouldnt need to declare anything at all

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That may be true, but the form still pops up when creating a Royal Mail postage label asking for lots of details, of which not all of the questions we have answers to, and so who knows exactly what details we are required to fill in and what details we can get away without filling in?  There is just no reliable and relevant info to go by.

Anyway, if NI is excluded in our eBay listings, we should not even be being faced with this issue.  Since our post we've had further NI eBay orders to deal with. It's a joke, what's the point in excluding places if eBay is just going to ignore this! 

[station13thirteen]

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@keagnes2012 wrote:

I don’t think you need to fill in forms when posting to Northern Ireland as it comes under the United Kingdom and is part of the United Kingdom just like England Scotland and Wales.

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I'm afraid you are a little out of touch.

The new NI postage GPSR (General Product Safety Regulation) rules officially come into play proper from May 1st, 2025, but RM has had it in place for a few weeks now, so people get used to it before it becomes binding.

RM postage cost to NI is not affected, it is just that a form has to be filled in with a load of product details and other nonsense.

[4_bathrooms]

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@keagnes2012 wrote:

I don’t think you need to fill in forms when posting to Northern Ireland as it comes under the United Kingdom and is part of the United Kingdom just like England Scotland and Wales.

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When a British business sells to to buyers in Northern Ireland they have two things to consider under the Windsor Framework. The first is Northern Ireland remains in the EU's customs union meaning EU rules about product safety apply to most products. This means businesses registered in Great Britain are expected to comply with the EU's General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR); something eBay are half-heartedly and haphazardly enforcing.

The second is new rules that are coming into force that will mean GB businesses will have different protocols to follow depending upon whether a Northern Irish buyer is a consumer or a business. These rules will be enforced by carriers (Royal Mail, Evri, Yodel etc.) meaning GB businesses will have extra paperwork/box ticking to perform when shipping goods to Northern Ireland.     

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Why exactly is it, that you don't have the answers for Royal Mail for a product that you sell?

If your unsure as to what you need to fill in, surely it would be more profitable to have a conversation with RM, as they are the ones that require the information.

As to still getting orders for NI, then you have obviously not excluded the location properly.

Have you actually changed your individual postage policies to exclude it?

[4_bathrooms]

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@station13thirteen wrote:

Well, we excluded NI on each of our postage policies due to the confusing and time-consuming GSPR issue.

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Apparently not; this is from the first listing of yours that I checked. Northern Ireland is definitely not excluded:

[station13thirteen]

Well, that's quite bizarre, as we have none of the shown locations excluded in our postage policies, so this must be eBay interfering again.

I've just checked our postage policies yet again, and we only have NI ticked to be excluded - the box is ticked and it says Northern Ireland is excluded. So according to our settings all of our postage policies exclude NI, but clearly this is not reflected in our listings.  I just don't know what more we can do...? 

[station13thirteen]

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@therenewalworkshopltd wrote:

Why exactly is it, that you don't have the answers for Royal Mail for a product that you sell?

If your unsure as to what you need to fill in, surely it would be more profitable to have a conversation with RM, as they are the ones that require the information.

As to still getting orders for NI, then you have obviously not excluded the location properly.

Have you actually changed your individual postage policies to exclude it?

---

Firstly, even if we did have all the answers on hand to fill in, this is too time-consuming to be worth the hassle, and because all this is so new, no one seems to have all the answers, Royal Mail just tell you to fill in the required information on the form. 

Northern Ireland is as excluded as it is ever going to be from all of our individual postage policies. You can only tick the location 'excluded' box, see it shown as an 'excluded' location, and save the settings. That should be it... but it is not working!  Try it yourself, see if it works for you.

[station13thirteen]

For those of you that don't believe us, think we are stupid or doing something wrong, and indeed for our own sanity, here is a screenshot of NI excluded in one of our postage policies.

OK, we think we have at least one answer.

Out of interest we created a new listing (sell a similar item) and without making any other changes to the postage policies, etc, this listing actually shows NI excluded.

So it appears that any new listing created will be OK.  The problem here is that we have 700 odd current listings that do not exclude NI and I'm not sure if there is anything we can do about it ourselves.  It would be totally impractical for us to delete all the listings and start again from scratch.  Just great!!!

[station13thirteen]

Incidentally, we have tried revising a listing, slightly altering the listing and revising the item, changing the postage policy temporarily and relisting, changing it back and then relisting, and nothing gives us NI excluded unless it is a brand new listing.

This really is a bit of a nightmare and yet again another eBay glitch. Something else that we have no control over and which only eBay can address and sort out... we're not holding our breath.

[fargvs]

Unless you are selling Business >< Business ?, there is no need for additional paperwork on Private sales if you use Royal Mail for delivery --- Some Couriers will request it as standard policy for BT Postcodes delivery.

There are over 1.9 million potential customers who are being excluded by needless NI exclusions on listings.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

What you are referring to is the Windsor Framework, which does indeed impact business/business sales.

However, the issue here is to do with GPSR, which is the EU and because of NI being a half way house with the EU.

That is why you need to fill in the information for the likes of RM.

@station13thirteen  Have you also updated your postage preferences to exclude NI?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/ship/prf