I'm suspending shipping to the European Union

A quick service announcement, no beating around the bush: I no longer ship to other European Union countries. France and the rest of the world are unchanged.

Why

Selling to individuals in another EU country isn't just a matter of dropping a parcel at the post office. Each country has its own extended producer responsibility obligations: you have to register with a national body, file reports, pay contributions, and often appoint a local representative. One registration per country.

I work alone in my workshop. Time spent on paperwork is time not spent cutting, sewing and inlaying. And the cost of all these registrations combined is far too heavy to bear. Multiplying those procedures for a handful of parcels a year makes no sense, for you or for me.
Nor, for that matter, for most of my fellow makers, who've ended up choosing to stop... and they'd have us believe our government supports Craft (Art or otherwise) and the Made in France label... 😏

So why is outside the EU easier?

It sounds backwards, but it is. A parcel to Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom or Australia needs a customs declaration and a bit of paperwork at the moment of sending, and that's it. It's logistics, one parcel at a time, rather than a stack of recurring formalities to keep up all year in several countries at once.

In practice

• France: nothing changes.
• Outside the European Union: nothing changes either.
• Other European Union countries: orders and shipping are suspended.

If you're in the European Union and you have a delivery address in France, write to me and we'll look at it together.

This isn't permanent

It's a small-workshop decision, made to stay focused on the making. If the rules get simpler, or if the workshop grows enough to absorb the paperwork, I'll reopen. And I'll say so here.

Thanks for understanding, and sorry to those it leaves out.

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