Amazon UK stops shipping to NZ addresses :(

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#2358808 21-Nov-2019 17:55

Has anyone actually contacted Amazon to ask "Why no NZ delivery any more?". We've all thrown a lot of conjecture about the answer to that...but lets get it definitively! Could just be a IT change rollout screw up! :D

mdooher

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#2358812 21-Nov-2019 18:17

Geektastic:

Question.

Company A is a large company based outside NZ. Many NZers buy things from it.

The government says to it "You must collect our taxes and send them to us!"

Company A says "No."

Company A carry on selling to NZers, not collecting taxes.

What happens?

Nothing...but i bet there is some UN convention that their country may have signed up to..so they get pressured

Matthew

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#2358818 21-Nov-2019 18:33

mdooher:

Geektastic:

Question.

Company A is a large company based outside NZ. Many NZers buy things from it.

The government says to it "You must collect our taxes and send them to us!"

Company A says "No."

Company A carry on selling to NZers, not collecting taxes.

What happens?

Nothing...but i bet there is some UN convention that their country may have signed up to..so they get pressured

Oh no...not 'pressured'...!

moulinette

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#2358830 21-Nov-2019 19:01

nzkc:

Has anyone actually contacted Amazon to ask "Why no NZ delivery any more?". We've all thrown a lot of conjecture about the answer to that...but lets get it definitively! Could just be a IT change rollout screw up! :D

I just asked on their chat and this is the response I got from their customer service rep:

"As of 18 November, 2019, Amazon.co.uk will no longer accept orders for delivery to NZ, due to a change in NZ Goods and Services Tax (GST) legislation"

surfisup1000

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#2358833 21-Nov-2019 19:23

moulinette:

nzkc:

Has anyone actually contacted Amazon to ask "Why no NZ delivery any more?". We've all thrown a lot of conjecture about the answer to that...but lets get it definitively! Could just be a IT change rollout screw up! :D

I just asked on their chat and this is the response I got from their customer service rep:

"As of 18 November, 2019, Amazon.co.uk will no longer accept orders for delivery to NZ, due to a change in NZ Goods and Services Tax (GST) legislation"

NZKC is correct though, it has only been conjecture.

The media really need to hammer this one.

antoniosk

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#2358952 21-Nov-2019 21:28

surfisup1000:

moulinette:

nzkc:

Has anyone actually contacted Amazon to ask "Why no NZ delivery any more?". We've all thrown a lot of conjecture about the answer to that...but lets get it definitively! Could just be a IT change rollout screw up! :D

I just asked on their chat and this is the response I got from their customer service rep:

"As of 18 November, 2019, Amazon.co.uk will no longer accept orders for delivery to NZ, due to a change in NZ Goods and Services Tax (GST) legislation"

NZKC is correct though, it has only been conjecture.

The media really need to hammer this one.

What exactly should be hammered?

NZ has made a political policy decision similar to the UK and France, and no doubt other rich countries. They are markets of hundreds of millions of people though - so there is some merit in sucking up the costs and doing what you can to service those markets. Who gives a monkey's about a few thousand people in NZ who shop online? Youshop will get some business, but the overall traffic will drop and the forecasts of millions in revenue will evaporate.

Amazon UK has made a commercial decision to exclude NZ as a shipping destination. That's within their right. Surprising, really annoying and disappointing, but there it is.

Will NZ retailers improve their performance as a result and step up? i doubt it.

________

Antoniosk

richms

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#2358953 21-Nov-2019 21:33

antoniosk:

What exactly should be hammered?

NZ has made a political policy decision similar to the UK and France, and no doubt other rich countries. They are markets of hundreds of millions of people though - so there is some merit in sucking up the costs and doing what you can to service those markets. Who gives a monkey's about a few thousand people in NZ who shop online? Youshop will get some business, but the overall traffic will drop and the forecasts of millions in revenue will evaporate.

Amazon UK has made a commercial decision to exclude NZ as a shipping destination. That's within their right. Surprising, really annoying and disappointing, but there it is.

Will NZ retailers improve their performance as a result and step up? i doubt it.

I will probably start to have more $900 parcels arrive via reshippers as a result. If jp amazon ships to portland then it just results in a bit more emissions from transport and no tax for them.

Richard rich.ms

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sbiddle

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#2358954 21-Nov-2019 21:50

surfisup1000:

moulinette:

nzkc:

Has anyone actually contacted Amazon to ask "Why no NZ delivery any more?". We've all thrown a lot of conjecture about the answer to that...but lets get it definitively! Could just be a IT change rollout screw up! :D

I just asked on their chat and this is the response I got from their customer service rep:

"As of 18 November, 2019, Amazon.co.uk will no longer accept orders for delivery to NZ, due to a change in NZ Goods and Services Tax (GST) legislation"

NZKC is correct though, it has only been conjecture.

The media really need to hammer this one.

Exactly why should the media "hammer it"? There would always inevitably be companies who decided it they would rather not sell into NZ rather than register for GST and comply with NZ law and that's their choice.

For whatever reason Amazon UK (which is a very different entity to Amazon US) have decided registering for GST is too hard. I really don't know why they should be blamed or making that decision, ultimately at the end of the day they're the ones who will lose sales from the small number of people who choose to use the UK site to buy goods and ship them to New Zealand.

Geektastic

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#2358964 21-Nov-2019 22:13

Given the fact that the companies are not in any way I can see obliged to comply with NZ law if they are not domiciled in NZ, I have no idea why they don't just carry on selling.

richms

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#2358965 21-Nov-2019 22:20

Geektastic:

Given the fact that the companies are not in any way I can see obliged to comply with NZ law if they are not domiciled in NZ, I have no idea why they don't just carry on selling.

Same reason that I don't go intentionally violating other countries laws. What happens if one day I want to go there?

Richard rich.ms

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#2358975 21-Nov-2019 22:29

Geektastic:

Given the fact that the companies are not in any way I can see obliged to comply with NZ law if they are not domiciled in NZ, I have no idea why they don't just carry on selling.

Because they don't want to attract the eventual regulatory hand of govt. If Amazon screwed over every other country and refused to broadly behave, the world's diplomatic channels would be bombarding the US channels with 'go deal to these muppets or we will respond'. Fundamentally you have to believe most people and countries just want to get on with each other. Facebook is a great example of a company massively out of control, and as a result they will get slapped with more regulation, oversight and people who don't understand their business stepping in and telling them what to do. Faced with one company behaving badly, any govt will lean on them to behave better and comply (eventually).

But in this case, Amazon UK is simply saying 'we choose not to participate'. And that should be damn chilling - they did say they would do it, here tis.

________

Antoniosk

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#2358982 21-Nov-2019 23:05

An amazon chat representative also confirmed that pre orders will be honoured. Hopefully this is 100% correct as I have a preorder for a limited edition item due for release next year that I won’t be able to source at all now if this order gets cancelled.

surfisup1000

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#2359078 22-Nov-2019 08:02

antoniosk:

What exactly should be hammered?

NZ has made a political policy decision similar to the UK and France, and no doubt other rich countries. They are markets of hundreds of millions of people though - so there is some merit in sucking up the costs and doing what you can to service those markets. Who gives a monkey's about a few thousand people in NZ who shop online? Youshop will get some business, but the overall traffic will drop and the forecasts of millions in revenue will evaporate.

Amazon UK has made a commercial decision to exclude NZ as a shipping destination. That's within their right. Surprising, really annoying and disappointing, but there it is.

Will NZ retailers improve their performance as a result and step up? i doubt it.

You seem to think I am criticising Amazon? I'm not.

It the NZ government that needs to be criticised for enacting poorly thought tax law , the consequences of which are that foreign companies are restricting their trade to New Zealand consumers.

This new tax collection system annoys me, especially in consider the reverse implications of this. eg, a NZ company that exports to 25 nations, and those 25 nations enacted the same foreign agent tax collection law as New Zealand has done. Then that NZ company would have to implement 25 different tax collection systems to comply with each customers domestic tax legislation.

If this method of tax collection was globalised and standardised, I could accept that. But NZ striking out on their own...not so good.

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#2359230 22-Nov-2019 10:42

Interesting if you do a GST search term on Amazon.uk you get nothing

but if you do the same search term for Amazon.usa you get:

These search results

And if you do the same search term for Amazon.au you get:

These search results

If you use the search term New Zealand GST on AU or USA you get nothing.

So there are some small inconsistencies going on within Amazon per se.

There are big inconsistencies also concerning their pricing on the Kindle book store. If you go to the USA Kindle store and click on a book and the eBook is highlighted in orange it is in USA dollars and the other formats beside the eBook are in NZ dollars. If you then click on another format the eBook is displayed in NZ dollars. Also your then email receipt is in US dollars but your order transaction page lists all your spending in NZ dollars.

If however you go to the Aussie Kindle store ALL prices are in AU dollar and your Order history is also in AU dollars.

And of course your CC statement will also have a bank foreign currency fee attached.

Spoke to their online chat people and apparently they are aware of ALL these inconsistencies and their tech's are in the process of recoding all of these currency and tax indicators.

We shall see.

Whilst the difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes a bit longer. However, miracles you will have to wait for.

rb99

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#2359250 22-Nov-2019 11:16

Not impressed, but some warning would have been nice. It was good to be able to get blurays and dvds from there. Things were a bit easier with regions and they'd knock VAT off. So much for getting those box sets of M*A*S*H, Only Fools and Horses and lots of others.

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

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