Sadly, the United Kingdom has left the wonderful project that is the European Union. This means there are potential barriers to mailing stuff between the UK and Europe.
Additionally, there is a bit of a pandemic going on which has slowed down all the distribution systems as they have reduced staff and more complicated working procedures to maintain safety.
Finally, both Europe and the UK are introducing new VAT procedures, which confuses matters more.
For United Kingdom customers, there are no changes. We are based in Edinburgh which, at time of writing, is still a part of the UK. All of our prints are made in Edinburgh and other items are made elsewhere in the UK and dispatched from our studio in Edinburgh. Deliveries may be slower than usual so please allow at least a week or two for any orders to get to you.
To alleviate any problems for EU customers, we will, where possible, arrange for any print based items to be printed and sent from within Europe. We have partnered with a company based in the Netherlands who print perfectly to our specifications, using our choice of papers and print processes to produce the exact same product we print in our own studios. The only difference is that they roll all prints in a tube for mailing, while we post our A3 and A4 prints flat packed.
This means that for prints, including canvas prints and framed prints, you should have no problems at all, as they do not need to cross any customs borders to get to you.
For greeting cards and other merchandise/homeware items however, they will still be sent from the UK, and could therefore be an issue.
You may incur additional VAT charges imposed by your government. We do not yet know if this will start happening immediately, or later this year. You might find your postal carrier will require you to pay local VAT/IVA/USt PLUS handling charges. If your country has commenced checking all parcels coming in from the UK, then it will also significantly slow down the process.
For EU customers, the price you pay on our website does not currently include VAT, so we will be unable to issue you with tax documents at this time.
The EU will commence a new VAT system on July 1st 2021, at which time this will likely change our procedures and pay EU VAT directly ourselves so any deliveries should get to you unhindered, and we will have tax invoices available. Unfortunately before that time we would have to register and pay VAT for every EU country individually and that is not an option due to the tiny size of our company.
For customers anywhere else in the world, you should also expect slower deliveries. We have also found print partners in USA and Australia to help alleviate the hold ups when goods are crossing borders, although sometimes the delivery services within your country may also be backed up.
Remember, deliveries are quite slow at the moment. Parcels we send to Spain, for example, have taken up to 4 weeks to arrive when we have paid for a 48 hour courier service. The combination of Brexit, Covid and winter are slowing it all down at the moment. Basically, please don't order for a last minute birthday present and expect it to arrive in time.
But please do order. It may take a bit longer, but you will still get your lovely artwork to make your home more fantastic, and we will all get to survive these crazy times!