Jonboy

Indeed, I am weighing up paying out this vs switching to btcc and going to some of the races as a alternative...

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2019/02/now-tv-formula-one-season-ticket/ hmmm £195 for skyf1 (via nowtv) for the season. Not as bad as I thought but enough to make me think carefully. The auto renew sting in the tail at the end of the season is also worth keeping in mind....

Everybody in transport/logistics/purchasing etc are currently basing their revised procedures on no deal, and all the rules becoming the same as dealing with the rest of world....if anything less is agreed it will (hopefully) be less work.

Zero duties doesn’t automatically waive the VAT payable upon import and the need for a customs clearance accordingly, particularly on commercial orders that tend to be larger than single domestic items...

1) for smaller parcel consignment imports the carrier often acts as customs agent and levies a small fee( £8/£13 for parcel force) for the privilege, making small orders from suppliers less viable. They can also be a bit random in how they classify goods and the duties you then pay accordingly. 2) for outbound via Royal Mail you should be able to just use a cn22 on the outside of the parcel, as it is the recieving country that levy import duties and taxes, Note the cn22 process is being dropped worldwide at the end of the year in favour of advance notification online...see Royal Mail for details. 3) for infrequent orders it is worth just using the carrier to clear customs on your behalf. Note that not suppling detailed information on exports can cause delays and extra expense for your customers. E.g. instead of invoice/receipt saying “Hornby R186” say “Hornby R186 model railway accessory”. If you can supply a commodity code even better (your suppliers will likely have a list on request). Some countries have a threshold under which they don’t levy charges, but it is country by country ( or harmonised single market!) thing and your customers responsibility to investigate before importing and then pay. 4)import duties are levied on the cost of the goods, carriage/packaging to you and then VAT is levied on top. On hobby/craft items duty’s are typically in the region of 6.5%,(beware the anti-trump tariffs if importing from the USA).the VAT can be reclaimed on your VAT return, but be aware your customs clearing agent will invoice you for the duty and VAT, but you technically cannot reclaim until it is listed on a C79 form that hmrc send out monthly as this is the proof. Duty cannot be reclaimed. If importing a lot it is worth setting up a deferment account, giving you 30 days to pay direct to HMRC. (Customs agents typically charge 1.5% of the outlay to use their deferment, subject to a minimum fee). I believe the interim arrangements for eu imports are going to be on a deferred basis, which should help you avoid a cash flow shock. 5)controlled goods, anything that needs a license to import or export (medicines, guns, parts that could be used to make weapons etc. Etc.). 6) customs declaration is a set of documents detailing what is being imported, value and country of origin (where made, not where you are buying from) that your customs agent submit electronically to hmrc to clear customs. If you can get your supplier to proactively show the 8digit commodity code on the paperwork(you can find them on uktradeinfo.com but there are circa 65k of the blighters so worth getting a customs agent to guide you in the early days) you can also search them on .gov.uk to see the rate of import duties that should apply in advance. 7) yes as long as the c79 has arrived if cleared against your VAT number or an invoice from carrier( or some put a receipt sticker on the parcel). It is worth ticking off the entries on the c79 when it arrives and noting which supplier and invoice number it relates too in case of later inspections.

It is also common to have two or more lamps running from a socket via splitters and it would be a bit of a b****** if a lamp blowing in one takes out a fuse 25’ above the audiences heads halfway through a show, hence unfused plugs running back to protected dimmer/distribution racks.

Nah that’s the “I am entitled to park anywhere I like if these are activated feature” not an indicator...

I wonder what the consumption of doing is vs the consumption of talking about it online I do often sit in the office watching everyone else with their “connected” lifestyles based around the latest gadgets, talking to everyone and their dog all day, and wonder if they are better or worse off for it... (I run a 6 year old smartphone and begrudgingly send/receive around 3 txts and 3 or 4 minutes of calls a week on a busy week...and only use the data services on WiFi rather than mobile data).

One of ours went missing when we had plumbers working in the bathroom. Eventually found he had squeezed through a hole in a kitchen cupboard and was underneath it, behind the plinth...

I recently got rid of a mk3 Clio. Drivers side headlight was a pain as you had to remove the funnel for the washer bottle and then go in blind as the plug either blocked your view or was a b****** to fit afterwards. I tried for an hour one evening and gave up as cold and dark by then, wandered out next morning and clipped bulb in on first attempt.. Passenger side had a lot more visibility and was a doodle....

Followed a cyclist through a local town the other morning, they only had lights mounted on their helmet...every time they turned their head more than about 30 degrees to check side roads etc or looked down it presented me with an unlit view of them in their direction of travel. When they were looking ahead and straight and level the lamps were outside the normal field of vision(around 3’ higher) I would expect to see hazards...glad it was a well lit town centre and not a foggy country lane I encountered them on..... (Said as someone who cycles almost as much as I drive during the week).

Interesting that cars keep popping up...my understanding is one brand at least have a 50%+ rate of vehicles that require remedial work at the dealers...

It’s funny, I always used to have the choice of paying more to osbournes, where Maurice would carefully open the box, inspect the model, place it on the test track and ensure it was a good runner and in tip top shape(probably whilst handing over a cup of coffee) or go online and save a few quid and forego this with the seller relying on the manufacturer and the occasional inspection at random...as a community as a whole modellers(and society in general) seem to have prioritised saving a few quid over the one to one service they also claim to want. With all the costs of running a business these days rising faster than the prices customers are prepared to pay ( rent, business rates, banking, waste disposal, H&S compliance, communications, staff wages, NI, pensions, to name a few ) and squeezing margins ever more the two are ever more mutually exclusive. I say this as the manager of a wholesaler supplying over 1000 uk small retail businesses with hobby items and talking day in day out to their owners. I do sympathise with the OP, items should be complete and as described, but it is the herd mentality of “got to get every item to fill the display case at the lowest possible cost because my pension/salary/disposable income is so meagre” collectors/modellers that has shaped the market today and this has for me removed the choice of exceptional service for a few more quid as the local shop has closed.

Anyone mentioned Peco-Rama yet as a permanent exhibition example? The big issue with experience based businesses is you either pay big for a good location with high natural footfall, or you spend the difference in rent between a cheaper premises and such a location on marketing to create your own footfall. If you haven’t got good parking within 200 yards as well then it’s almost certainly a non-starter.

Ok that makes more sense, I had assumed it was a download and into VAT-Moss territory, rather than goods.

I believe the seller has to use more than one piece of data to identify customers home country, some you may give them such as address, others may be related to computer IP address or issuing bank of payment card...

+1 on the eye protection, it is easy to shatter various bits in quite a few jobs if you are cack-handed like me...

I have seen a prototype kiln pull 22 amps on a 13 amp fuse before without blowing....we were investigating it after 2 sockets in a row burnt out.

The one you may have missed is physically needing more space in the warehouse, if you assume you need a shelf front space for each item so your pickers can find it you would need(educated guess as someone involved in a very similar mail order type business) as much space for one loco as 10, but may need 2 spaces for 11 to 20, and 3 for 21 to 30 locos of the same item. When it gets close to filling up do you rent a second warehouse( with a stepped cost) or clear excess stock...

That was something I was going to post a couple of days ago, but didn’t want to be labelled a conspiracy nut

In my workplace it was the series of strikes around 10 years ago that made us reduce our reliance on Royal Mail. We used to post invoices, statements, marketing materials etc out to customers and the strikes actively made us implement other solutions such as sending invoices with the goods (changing processes significantly to do so) and emailing statements and marketing. This reduced our business with RM by around 90%.... it may have come later with technology anyway but it was the direct actions and responses of the RM and their staff that forced the issue in the first instance.

Well I just watched it on catchup and it definitely seems to have grown up a bit now the battery lasts a full race and the half way point car swap has been eliminated. They now have two markers offline, crossing them gives the driver a four minute power boost which helps increase the overtaking in a more interesting/less predictable manner than DRS. It also has its own unobvious and techno-baffle based penalty system based around regeneration rates which affected the results after a rained off practise session meant the teams couldn’t calibrate the cars fully..... Not a big fan of the tv presentation (graphics rather than commentary) and hope F1 don’t take too many hints from them.

They refurbished a load across the road from my office prior to export to Cyprus a few years back,8 of the first ten apparently broke down on route to the port for the ferry abroad......

This was in the news a couple of weeks back: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6449355/Rising-cost-stamps-fuelling-illegal-black-market-eBay-quarter-price.html