The Brexit Impact for the Online Space
Since day one, there had been uncertainty around the impact Brexit would have for many different industries, and whilst the most obvious were within the direct trade which had also been the first to see the big change in the new year, the online space had always had a big question mark filled with uncertainty, but as the first few months of the year have come and mostly passed, we’re now seeing the big impacts Brexit is having for many who are based primarily online.
Online retail has been hit hard for some – The big platforms like Amazon will undoubtably be unaffected by this as they will continue on as if nothing had changed, but the smaller online stores have already felt the impact on international trade as the horror stories around huge import taxes haven’t gone amiss – this had been warned toward the end of the year, but there were many who didn’t believe it would be as bad as it is. Anything that comes from outside of the UK will need an import tax to be paid, and some are discovering just how high this cost is, with many facing uncertainty as difficulties in international trade cut off a huge portion of potential sales.
Could online gaming be at risk next? – There has been a huge surge in new players throughout the past year to different online gaming services, many have been able to thrive despite strengthened initiatives such as those found at thebestcasinos.co.uk offering casinos and betting alike – but could this be the next big industry to see change? There are already titles where an international transfer fee is required for any deposit or payment, and with many operators moving out of the UK to different parts of Europe to avoid growing regulation in the UK, this could mean that any change to online payments would have a heavy impact here, especially as some international banks have already hiked prices.
Much of the situation still remains largely up in the air, given the last minute nature of the final deal there aren’t many in depth details that have been figured out yet and many will have to work their way through the red tape figuring it out as they go, but with the current state of the pandemic, there could also be hidden changes that won’t become more apparent for a number of months to come, and the full impact of Brexit on the wider online market may not be fully apparent until the year rounds out.
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Matthew Parris, whom God preserve, had a piece in The Times last week bemoaning the fact that he'd been charged an extra £58.34 on some French bookshelves he bought online for £236.70. I had to inform him that he'd merely discovered VAT, which should have been deducted by his French supplier (unless they were incompetent or dishonest - what are the odds?) plus an extra £11 (probably for P&P).
My brother's hobby involves him buying and selling stuff on eBay, mainly from Germany, and for the first few weeks of January it was a little chaotic, but now (surprise!) everything has settled down. What's more significant in that small world is that eBay are dropping PayPal (now they've been floated) and requiring payment with a debit/credit card, which means that HMRC will shortly discover who's been running a tidy little undisclosed source of income. Watch this space.
The big shippers of small items (your DHL, UPS plus Amazon etc) have been dealing with shipments between the EU and third party countries since forever, unsurprisingly, they understand how to do this.