Request for eBay to Add UKIMS/EORI Fields for Northern Ireland Business Buyers

[device-spares]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to raise an issue that’s becoming increasingly frustrating when shipping to Northern Ireland buyers, especially since recent changes with Royal Mail and post-Brexit regulations.

While shipping to personal buyers is still manageable, sending items to business customers in Northern Ireland has become unnecessarily complicated.

We’re now required to provide XI EORI numbers (and in some cases UKIMS registration details) for every business order, regardless of value—even for items under £50. This isn’t an issue for personal parcels, but when the buyer uses a business name, Royal Mail requires these numbers to proceed with the shipment.

At the moment, eBay doesn’t collect or display the buyer’s EORI or UKIMS info during checkout or in the order details. This means we have to manually message every NI business buyer after purchase to ask for these details — which delays processing, adds hassle, and creates confusion for buyers who don’t understand why we’re asking.

My suggestion/request to eBay:
Please consider adding an option during checkout or in buyer account settings where business buyers in Northern Ireland can save or provide their XI EORI and UKIMS numbers. These details should then be made available to the seller automatically upon order — similar to how phone numbers are shown.

This would massively streamline the process for both sellers and buyers, and ensure compliance with current customs requirements.

Is anyone else dealing with this? Would love to hear your thoughts or if eBay staff can escalate this.

Thanks!

[ojewellery]

Sounds like a sensible idea but I guess it'll take a while for systems to cope with changes.  Just playing with workarounds that might save time,  EORI numbers are typically based on VAT registration number and there is a XI EORI checker.  If your business buyer is an active seller you may be able to just stick their cat number into the xibeori checker with the relevant xi and 000 prefix/ suffix and that may reduce some of the waiting for a response time.

[ojewellery]

Shouldn't have posted on the move on my mobile!  The message should have read:

Sounds like a sensible idea but I guess it'll take a while for systems to cope with changes.  Just playing with workarounds that might save time,  EORI numbers are typically based on VAT registration number and there is a XI EORI checker.  If your business buyer is an active seller, you may be able to just stick their VAT number into the XI checker with the relevant XI and 000 prefix/ suffix and that may reduce some of the waiting for a response time.

[device-spares]

Hi,

thank you for your response.

I’ve checked, but I couldn’t find a way to access buyers' VAT numbers, and it seems there’s no option to search for them by company name on the government website. Unless I’ve misunderstood, the only way to collect this info is by messaging each buyer for every transaction.

What makes it more frustrating is that if a customer orders repeatedly, I’d have to go back through messages and copy the Ukims/Eori number for each order. Ideally, there should be a way to save the VAT number to the buyer’s account, similar to how their address is stored.

Let me know if I’ve missed something or if there’s a better workaround.

Thanks again!

[ojewellery]

Interesting, I was working on the assumption that business buyers on eBay were also sellers on eBay.   I'm guessing if the business has a registered account they'd have a VAT number on it maybe if its a buying account only they don't but still may help.

From your all orders page, click the buyer user ID, this brings up a pop up, click the user ID again and it brings up the feedback page, click about.  This is where the VAT number would be if they've ever set up to sell.

Not a solution but anything that can reduce a bit of overhead is a win.

If you're open to playing with AI - I just searched my company and yours and chat GPT brought up our VAT numbers straight away.  It may be possible to write a script to get it to do a VAT number search then add the  XI prefix and relevant suffix and check the database all as one command you could use over and over again.

[ducatimondo]

Something definitely needs doing in regard to this as we have found deliveries to Northern Ireland are taking much longer than they are to from UK mainland to UK mainland.

I suppose it is the extra nonsense for custom's processing.

eBay however still say the items will magically arrive 10 seconds after they are order, same as they do for the rest of the UK.

So eBay need to add some extra time for deliveries as 2nd class post does not arrive anywhere in 1-2 days and most definitely not to Northern Ireland!!

What I do not understand is our requirement for this nonsense at all.

To my understanding, Northern Ireland is still part of the UK, so there should be no need to fill out any customs documents at all, same as I don't when sending from mainland to mainland.

[the-nutwood-collection]

The UKIMS is your number, and doesn't change.  This is the number you use to green lane packages that aren't 'at risk' of export to the EU.