E-Commerce: Your Global High Street
December is by far the busiest time of the year for internet shopping. Where the local high street is suffering from closures and a dearth of customers, the global high street on the web gets larger and busier, year on year. People are buying more, and they’re buying it from much farther afield. No longer are they limited to the shops they can reach by car or bus. They can buy from across the globe.
If you’re an e-commerce supplier of goods which you source from around the world, doing trade with UK and European customers via your web site, how can Customs Clearance Ltd help you? At this time of year order volumes can be higher than average, and each year, more and more people buy goods from abroad for the first time. They need you, the supplier, to have a fast, efficient shipping system, and easy customs clearance and delivery processes. Customs Clearance Ltd has a tried-and-tested ‘blueprint for success’. We’ve put in place a suite of processes that help our customers gain competitive edge and provide a service to their customers that keeps them coming back for more.
Most likely, you collate your overseas orders just once a day, then transmit to your overseas supplier(s), who then each produce a single shipment in return. Customs Clearance Ltd can manage the collection and freighting of those shipments to the UK, regardless of the point of origination. With the appropriate documentation from suppliers, we can then customs clear the shipments, collect them and, using our own warehouse facilities, break them down into their individual customer orders and dispatch these to your customers across the UK and Europe by a range of means, to reach your customers.
Customs Clearance Ltd acts as your ‘hub’ for the UK and Europe, handling the shipping, customs clearance, break-bulk and onward forwarding for you from end-to-end – and you never even need to see the goods you’re selling. We can handle this process for you either DDP (Duty Delivered Paid) or DDU (Duty Delivered Unpaid). In the case of DDU, our on-line secure payment system ensures that your customers can pay the required duty quickly and easily, via their PC.
If you’re a buyer – whether for business or as a private consumer, you may never know or care where your purchases originate from. Or, you may be more adventurous and quite prepared to buy from overseas web sites directly. If this is the case, you will need to know what arrangements your overseas supplier makes when shipping the goods, and what duties you will need to pay when your goods reach the UK. Whatever the case, unless the value is below the De Minimis limit in place when your shipment arrives, you will have customs duty to pay, and, inevitably, VAT too. So don’t let these items be a shock to you when the time comes. If you are contacted by Customs in order to clear higher-value items, we can take care of this for you and arrange delivery of your goods at your convenience – just give our friendly Customer Services team a call to find out how to set this up.
Customs Clearance Ltd exists to make the process of freighting and clearing customs a pain-free and straightforward experience, whether you’re an e-commerce business or a private individual. With our experienced, professional support, you can gain back valuable hours and days in handling customs processes.
