The current position is this:

Britain will remain in a transition agreement with the EU member states up until the end of 2020. This means that we can continue to ship parcels into the EU without consideration of customs documentation, inspection and charge up until that date.

What does the future hold?

This is a rather more tricky question to answer as it completely depends on the shape that any trade agreement with the EU takes but we've been considering, discussing and working on a variety of options to try to be prepared, insofar as that is practical, for a range of outcomes.

• If we have to complete additional customs declarations in order to be able to export to the EU27 then we'll need country of origin and harmonised tariff / commodity codes for each product rather than on an ad-hoc basis so we are building the capture and transmission of this data into our internal systems.
• Integrating software with our current preferred carriers may allow us to complete customs declarations electronically with little manual intervention, however this increased trade friction comes with clearance fees at a level which has not yet been finalised.
• Delivering products Duty Paid into the EU27 is feasible but planning for this is very dependent on the shape of the agreement, as above this will be subject to clearance fees and our ability to ensure VAT and any applicable Duties are paid to the correct country, an aspect we currently manage for business to business sales through the EC Sales List.

It is entirely possible, ignoring the political rhetoric, that the current transition agreement will be extended during 2020 once the outline of an agreement and the negotiation process has proceeded rather further than it currently has and we will be reviewing and revising our options as this occurs.

Although we have received assurances that our preferred carriers and the Government are committed to being ready irrespective of the shape of any agreement with the EU27 we are unconvinced that the necessary additional infrastructure, trained staff and systems required under some of the harshest options the UK Government imposes on us can be catered for by the end of 2020 and we would urge that the UK and EU Governments mutually consider extending the transition agreement at that point rather than facing us with a cliff edge.

Whilst we'd rather not have been facing this situation, we at Games Lore Ltd are committed to ensuring that there is as little disruption as possible to our customers as is feasible, however it is inevitable that at certain times, events outside our control may cause delays and we would ask for patience during these times whilst we work to resolve those.