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Quick newsletter today but with some important news so please do give it a read so you're up-to-date with all the goings on here at SHC HQ!
LEISIA ZGHARDA SUMMER RELEASE
We've just finished adding the brand new summer release from Lesia Zgharda Designs in the Ukraine to our store.
With cute but realistic dogs, hedgehogs on holiday and a pigeon-postie there is a lot to love in this new release. We have restocks on most stamps too!
GUMMIAPAN SUMMER RELEASE & CHRISTMAS DIES
We are expecting a delivery from Gummiapan tomorrow or Thursday. We will TRY to get it processed and into store this week but as we're closing for a couple of days (see below) we might not manage to get it done before Friday. If so we'll get it on next week. This delivery has the whole of their new release from last week, some restocks on sold out items, some new requests which include LOTS of Christmas dies (there are over 100 new items coming!) Here's just a few items from the new release to give you a hint!
EU SHIPPING SUSPENSION
We have today, reluctantly, turned off all our shipping options for EU Countries due to the changes that come into place tomorrow. Royal Mail is updating the systems to comply with the new rules but as we have seen a couple of parcels returned as rejected by customs this week, after today we are suspending shipping for a short while until all customs offices across Europe understand the new rules!
The new rules mean there will be an additional fee of €3 per product type (so if you have a stamp, 3 dies, 2 stencils and an embossing folder in your order, this will attract an additional €12 customs handling fee) Some countries have additional/different charges - see our EU shipping info page for more details.
As we only ship on a DDU basis, customers will need to pay these fees before delivery, we cannot pay them on your behalf upfront as the costs and paperwork involved are too prohibitive for a small store like ours. These fees are being levied by the EU as they work towards having a centralised customs hub by 2030 and there is nothing we can do to avoid them.
We are aware that other stores ship using alternative shippers and pay the taxes for you (although they still charge you for those at the point of purchase) Whilst we would LOVE to make the whole process smoother for our EU customers by doing it this way - we just cannot afford to. In order to do that, we have to register to pay tax in one of the member states which costs £7000 a year just to register. We would then have to submit monthly accounts to that State at another huge cost as we would need a part-time member of staff just to do the paperwork (we only have to do accounts quarterly here in the UK for VAT), and then pay a fee to Royal Mail for them to make the payments on each order to Customs to get the parcel to you. We just do not sell anywhere near enough products into the EU to cover these huge costs. So all we can offer is our current situation - we remove the VAT at the point of purchase, and then the recipient pays the VAT, EU Customs Charges and any other fees directly to customs themselves to receive their parcel.
As soon as we are happy that the Royal Mail system works and that Customs Offices across Europe will accept our parcels without issue again, then we will add the shipping rates back and we will update you all via the newsletter. Sorry to have to suspend our services to the EU again but we simply cannot afford for lots of parcels to go missing as they did last time there was a major change as many Offices incorrectly rejected our paperwork and did not deliver the parcels to the recipients nor return the goods to us either costing us thousands in lost goods and refunds.
TEMPORARY STORE CLOSURE
For our UK and other non-EU customers for whom shipping is still open, we just need to let you know that we are taking a rare long-weekend off this week, so any order that is placed after 1pm on Thursday 2nd July will not ship until we are back in the office on Tuesday 7th July. As we will have 4 days worth of orders to process that day, shipping may not be immediate but we will catch up as quickly as we can!
We will also be expecting early monthly releases from Altenew, The Greetery and Waffle Flower Crafts next week, so again, we may be a little behind but will get them in store as soon as we can after the 7th July. (Although the long range forecast is for another heat wave that week and that does mean we can't work as fast as we usually do as its just too hot in the office to do solid 12 hour days!)
That's all the news for this week.
Happy Crafting and stay hydrated!
Tara & Rick
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