Gone very quiet
Discussion
Wondering how everyone's doing?
Other people I speak to seem to be having a pretty torrid time. Spoke with somebody else in the fashion business yesterday. Compared to H1 2021, their topline sales have held up, but returns rates have jumped from 11% (very low) to over 70%. We're not seeing that change (and hope we won't), but who really knows in the current climate?
Other people I speak to seem to be having a pretty torrid time. Spoke with somebody else in the fashion business yesterday. Compared to H1 2021, their topline sales have held up, but returns rates have jumped from 11% (very low) to over 70%. We're not seeing that change (and hope we won't), but who really knows in the current climate?
skwdenyer said:
Wondering how everyone's doing?
Other people I speak to seem to be having a pretty torrid time. Spoke with somebody else in the fashion business yesterday. Compared to H1 2021, their topline sales have held up, but returns rates have jumped from 11% (very low) to over 70%. We're not seeing that change (and hope we won't), but who really knows in the current climate?
I’ve been pretty busy over these last couple of weeks. Even my traditionally quiet days, (Mon, Tue, Sat), have been returning strong numbers, all well above average.Other people I speak to seem to be having a pretty torrid time. Spoke with somebody else in the fashion business yesterday. Compared to H1 2021, their topline sales have held up, but returns rates have jumped from 11% (very low) to over 70%. We're not seeing that change (and hope we won't), but who really knows in the current climate?
And to echo your comments re: returns, yes, I’m doing a lot of collections. That isn’t so bad for me because I get paid almost my standard rate for those and often I’ll deliver and collect from the same household.
I’m paid on four week cycles, so those four week blocks soon get out of sync with the calendar months. My previous 4-week pay was about 1/3 down on what I’d usually expect, (but still ‘ok’), but it’s looking like this current 4-week block will more than make up for that.
Plenty of other guys operating out of the same depot have been busy recently as well, so it’s not just specific to my rounds.
105.4 said:
I’ve been pretty busy over these last couple of weeks. Even my traditionally quiet days, (Mon, Tue, Sat), have been returning strong numbers, all well above average.
And to echo your comments re: returns, yes, I’m doing a lot of collections. That isn’t so bad for me because I get paid almost my standard rate for those and often I’ll deliver and collect from the same household.
I’m paid on four week cycles, so those four week blocks soon get out of sync with the calendar months. My previous 4-week pay was about 1/3 down on what I’d usually expect, (but still ‘ok’), but it’s looking like this current 4-week block will more than make up for that.
Plenty of other guys operating out of the same depot have been busy recently as well, so it’s not just specific to my rounds.
Interesting. Thee are lots of sales on at the moment, so that's likely to be keeping demand up. Quite how much extra margin is having to be spent I'm not sure.And to echo your comments re: returns, yes, I’m doing a lot of collections. That isn’t so bad for me because I get paid almost my standard rate for those and often I’ll deliver and collect from the same household.
I’m paid on four week cycles, so those four week blocks soon get out of sync with the calendar months. My previous 4-week pay was about 1/3 down on what I’d usually expect, (but still ‘ok’), but it’s looking like this current 4-week block will more than make up for that.
Plenty of other guys operating out of the same depot have been busy recently as well, so it’s not just specific to my rounds.
skwdenyer said:
Interesting. Thee are lots of sales on at the moment, so that's likely to be keeping demand up. Quite how much extra margin is having to be spent I'm not sure.
I’m not confident of the future though.Whether the poo will hit the fan pre or post Christmas remains to be seen. I’d guess at post Christmas.
One thing is for sure, I was seriously looking into buying a local food-led pub late last year / early this year. The expenses involved in contesting and sorting out my late Fathers Estate put paid to that, and I strongly suspect that I’ve dodged a massive bullet there !
105.4 said:
Red9zero said:
Our milkman has just emailed to say he is packing it in on Friday. Rising fuel costs and people cutting back have just made it no longer viable.
I’m surprised there’s any left. I don’t think I’ve seen a Milkman since the late 90’s.Well, we're just considering taking a punt, getting a new office, new premises, and expanding the business. It's been bonkers here in the last year or so, and our ROCE has been over 140%, and we are turning business away because we can't cope.
But it seems there's a recession around the corner, and things are getting tougher, and we are getting older. Tricky decision to expand, even though I think our business model will do well in a recession. (In fact, I think it would do less well in flourishing times).
Ho hum, to throw the dice or not.
But it seems there's a recession around the corner, and things are getting tougher, and we are getting older. Tricky decision to expand, even though I think our business model will do well in a recession. (In fact, I think it would do less well in flourishing times).
Ho hum, to throw the dice or not.
105.4 said:
Red9zero said:
Our milkman has just emailed to say he is packing it in on Friday. Rising fuel costs and people cutting back have just made it no longer viable.
I’m surprised there’s any left. I don’t think I’ve seen a Milkman since the late 90’s.bearman68 said:
Well, we're just considering taking a punt, getting a new office, new premises, and expanding the business. It's been bonkers here in the last year or so, and our ROCE has been over 140%, and we are turning business away because we can't cope.
But it seems there's a recession around the corner, and things are getting tougher, and we are getting older. Tricky decision to expand, even though I think our business model will do well in a recession. (In fact, I think it would do less well in flourishing times).
Ho hum, to throw the dice or not.
Would help if you explained what you do.But it seems there's a recession around the corner, and things are getting tougher, and we are getting older. Tricky decision to expand, even though I think our business model will do well in a recession. (In fact, I think it would do less well in flourishing times).
Ho hum, to throw the dice or not.
Hoofy said:
I notice people reducing the selling price of V8s on Autotrader. 
Thats not because of a cost of living crisis thats because i bought one last year 
buy at the top, sell at the bottom......seems to be my thing
Strange for me personally, paving and landscaping.
Builders merchants seem dead, all saying trade has slowed (which in the middle of summer is terrible).
But......im still very very busy, looking at work for next year. Phone went dead but now its back to too many enquiries and im losing track tbh.
However people are price sensitive and i'm not greedy, i have also bent over backwards for many years so im hoping thats paying off now.I have also made a massive effort in getting the work. Also south east so a bit of a bubble but i'm hearing people are quite/quieter.
skwdenyer said:
Good advice. We went rather early, so we set up our own NL entity and found local tax / accounting providers. If doing this, you need to rent an actual office (not just a nameplate like the UK) as your registered office - our accountant rents us a "desk" to get around this. We didn't require a deposit for VAT. Register in NL for VAT OSS. Dutch bank account needs a personal visit to NL, but we've found no problem using a Wise account (even Shopify Payments accepted that) - so that was set up remotely. We had a really good Dutch lawyer and accountant
If you're selling B2B, Dutch VAT is reverse-charge, so you never charge and never receive VAT. If importing, apply for an Article 23 Licence - that will allow you to defer VAT on imports. Or you can use a fiscal representative who will have this in place already (but will charge some additional money along the way).
Watch for different rules on imports depending upon whether you're selling on to trade (wholesale) or direct (ecom / retail).
The benefit of a local entity is that (if you, say, use Shopify) you can use local payment options - in our case we get quite a lot of sales from NL customers using iDEAL which is support by Shopify (but only if your site is properly established in NL).
We're in fashion, so opted for a fashion-specific fulfilment specialist in NL. We're not shipping from UK-EU regularly, instead importing direct into NL. It isn't really cost-effective to move (say) India-produced fashion IN-UK-NL because you'll get hit for duties twice (unless you're running bonded warehousing in the UK and can generate replacement certificates of origin - unlikely to be worth it at the scale of most). That's going to be true for a lot of people (UK being "a nation of shopkeepers" as once said), so quickly you're not going to want to bother with importing via UK.
Also watch out for transferring UK-NL (say) with UK VAT if you don't have a subsidiary and are just going to hold stock in NL. An "export" (where you can get back the import VAT) is only an export if to a 3rd party. If you shift goods to your NL fulfilment hub, you may not in fact have exported the goods for UK VAT purposes - you've just moved them to another location that you own. So you may not be able to reclaim the import VAT on the export, but you'll still have to pay NL VAT on the way in. This requires a little thought about the transaction flow.
The other gotcha to watch for is if you move goods UK-NL via FR (say) then you'll have a different headache - because the VAT may be due at the FR border - so unless you're going to organise a T1 document for movement FR-NL and do customs clearance in NL (which we do via our partner) then you're going to get stung. It is one of the reasons why you should import direct to NL if you can for NL stock-holding. If you are shipping UK-NL you'll need to think carefully about the carrier and the route (or use a 3rd party like Fulfilment Crowd who I'm guessing will make all these problems go away).
In case it's useful, we've used Heebink (dutch haulier with UK operations) to move goods UK-NL when we can't avoid it (pallet loads), and then our NL partner to do the inward clearance (so the goods move from Rotterdam to the warehouse under a T1 document). But that's all a level of complexity above what I think DSL is talking about
What else? Shipping declarations (export and import) tend to get charged by the line. So think about whether you can aggregate your goods on your shipping documents to minimise the number of lines. We group by HS code and country of origin, and by doing so frequently save quite large amounts.
+1 for Avalara, they're good and can handle a bunch of scenarios.
Finally, assume that NL customs are going to be a lot stricter than UK. We've had trouble moving shipments in that would have posed no problems in the UK, due to the rather less-than-flexible approach to some aspects of paperwork. But then we're importing from rural India, so the paperwork quality's often not what it might be.
If all of the above's too much to think about, and you're in fashion, and DSL's approach won't work for you, I'm open to talking about introducing people who can make it all rather easier (but PH Mods please note, I'm not in the consulting business, so this isn't an advertisement of my services).
Fantastic post. If you're selling B2B, Dutch VAT is reverse-charge, so you never charge and never receive VAT. If importing, apply for an Article 23 Licence - that will allow you to defer VAT on imports. Or you can use a fiscal representative who will have this in place already (but will charge some additional money along the way).
Watch for different rules on imports depending upon whether you're selling on to trade (wholesale) or direct (ecom / retail).
The benefit of a local entity is that (if you, say, use Shopify) you can use local payment options - in our case we get quite a lot of sales from NL customers using iDEAL which is support by Shopify (but only if your site is properly established in NL).
We're in fashion, so opted for a fashion-specific fulfilment specialist in NL. We're not shipping from UK-EU regularly, instead importing direct into NL. It isn't really cost-effective to move (say) India-produced fashion IN-UK-NL because you'll get hit for duties twice (unless you're running bonded warehousing in the UK and can generate replacement certificates of origin - unlikely to be worth it at the scale of most). That's going to be true for a lot of people (UK being "a nation of shopkeepers" as once said), so quickly you're not going to want to bother with importing via UK.
Also watch out for transferring UK-NL (say) with UK VAT if you don't have a subsidiary and are just going to hold stock in NL. An "export" (where you can get back the import VAT) is only an export if to a 3rd party. If you shift goods to your NL fulfilment hub, you may not in fact have exported the goods for UK VAT purposes - you've just moved them to another location that you own. So you may not be able to reclaim the import VAT on the export, but you'll still have to pay NL VAT on the way in. This requires a little thought about the transaction flow.
The other gotcha to watch for is if you move goods UK-NL via FR (say) then you'll have a different headache - because the VAT may be due at the FR border - so unless you're going to organise a T1 document for movement FR-NL and do customs clearance in NL (which we do via our partner) then you're going to get stung. It is one of the reasons why you should import direct to NL if you can for NL stock-holding. If you are shipping UK-NL you'll need to think carefully about the carrier and the route (or use a 3rd party like Fulfilment Crowd who I'm guessing will make all these problems go away).
In case it's useful, we've used Heebink (dutch haulier with UK operations) to move goods UK-NL when we can't avoid it (pallet loads), and then our NL partner to do the inward clearance (so the goods move from Rotterdam to the warehouse under a T1 document). But that's all a level of complexity above what I think DSL is talking about
What else? Shipping declarations (export and import) tend to get charged by the line. So think about whether you can aggregate your goods on your shipping documents to minimise the number of lines. We group by HS code and country of origin, and by doing so frequently save quite large amounts.
+1 for Avalara, they're good and can handle a bunch of scenarios.
Finally, assume that NL customs are going to be a lot stricter than UK. We've had trouble moving shipments in that would have posed no problems in the UK, due to the rather less-than-flexible approach to some aspects of paperwork. But then we're importing from rural India, so the paperwork quality's often not what it might be.
If all of the above's too much to think about, and you're in fashion, and DSL's approach won't work for you, I'm open to talking about introducing people who can make it all rather easier (but PH Mods please note, I'm not in the consulting business, so this isn't an advertisement of my services).
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