Stretch goal #2 unlocked + EU Shipping / fulfillment update
over 6 years ago
– Tue, Dec 05, 2017 at 12:35:19 AM
Hi backers!
Thanks to your support we’ve unlocked our second stretch goal! Also well on our way to the next. The travel sleeve will now be upgraded to a premium vegan leather strap with a detachable buckle that can be easily attached to a backpack or hand carried.
On a separate note, we have received numerous inquiries from our backers regarding EU shipping and customs information. EU duties and customs was not something we were completely familiar with but thanks to our backers’ input we were able to dig into this and figure out a solution. Every EU country has its own regulations and fees concerning imported goods. Customs agencies use the commodity type, quantity and other factors to determine duties & taxes charges. These duties and taxes are based on a combination of product price, shipping costs and the product’s harmonization system (HS) code. With the fees calculated, there are two options for paying them, either Delivery Duties Paid (or DDP which mean duties are paid prior to shipment) or Delivery Duties Unpaid (DDU which means duties are paid by customers). I think overall we have come up with an ideal solution that allows our backers to choose the option that aligns the best with their priorities.
Most campaigns by default opt for DDU option, which means the that backers must pay the tax and duties charge due based on the regulations in their home country. Campaigns that are priced in USD or ship from the U.S. typically opt for this option because duties can vary greatly between EU countries and makes it hard as a non-EUR based campaigns to properly account for this in the dollar pricing of the perks. Similar for us, when we started this process, we did not account for the customs and duties charges that might be associated with EU shipments. After getting your input and doing a lot of research and getting on calls with EU importers, and warehouses, we are offering two potential options for EU shipments:
1) DDU - this is the default based on the USD pricing of the campaign, our original delivery timeline and shipping applies. This means we will ship to our backers in March/April directly from our warehouse in the US with no additional steps of working with a local distributor, importer of record, or local 3rd party logistics providers. EU backers will be responsible for taxes and duties based on their local regulation and shipping address. This is the fastest but will require backers to pay for the taxes and duties. We will provide an option for you to pre-pay your tax and duty to save time and hassle in our post campaign survey. We will partially subsidize the tax and duty although we cannot give an estimate of what it will be for your particular case at this time. Some examples of local VAT for reference only - DE - 19% VAT - UK - 20% VAT - FR - 20% VAT - NL - 21% VAT.
2) DDP - we will give backers an option to select the DDP option in the post campaign survey. We will cover the the EU duties but there are a few implications with us paying the customs duties that adds quite a few extra steps to the process. This includes shipping from our US warehouse by ocean freight to a local EU distributor, going through customs and importation, check-in the inventory to a local 3PL provider, and finally shipping to individual addresses. We did not account for this extra process/time in our original projection so opting into the DDP option will cause delays with these shipments in EU countries. In short, while we are happy to offer a DDP option to our backers, given added complexity it will likely delay the delivery. We want to be transparent about this impact and give DDP as an option.
After researching the options, we think there are some trade-offs between either case but depending on our EU backers’ unique situation there might be a preference for one or the other. This is why we will offer DDU as the default in order to keep with our original timeline and offer DDP as an option in our post campaign survey for those that are willing to wait for the extra steps in order to make DDP possible.
Thanks as always for your support! We think this option gives the best control to our backers on how we should be fulfilling their shipments. Sorry about the long update but this is a complex topic and we wanted to provide as much detail and background as possible to our backers.
Thanks so much and connect soon!
The QUARTZ Team
