The shipment was rejected?! Something went wrong with FBA!

Just at the end of March, there was a very important historical event: the deadline for the UK to leave the EU was March 29th.

Of course, no one heard much noise, which shows that the Brexit vote failed.

After the Brexit date was temporarily postponed, sellers could have breathed a sigh of relief. However, when they opened the backend today, they found that there was something wrong with the goods entering the warehouse!

Many European sellers reported today that their backend delivery plans had abnormal status.

▲Abnormalities of FBA shipments

▲Discussion within the seller group (how to join the group is at the end of the article)

What is the import entry number that indicates the exception?

Why is a problem that never occurred before suddenly happening now?

Here we have to go back to last year, when the British government introduced a measure to combat the abuse of VAT rules by e-commerce sellers outside the EU

——Freight Services Provider Due Diligence Scheme (FHDDS)

The measure is mainly aimed at companies operating warehousing services in the UK (such as Amazon logistics centers). If they store goods imported from outside the EU and are owned by companies outside the EU, they must apply to join the program.

Those warehousing service providers participating in FHDDS need to investigate the overseas inventories mentioned above in accordance with the plan regulations, and need to record various information of stored goods starting from April 1, 2019.

This FHDDS is actually a regulation that restricts warehousing service providers (Amazon).

If a seller fails to fulfill UK VAT or customs obligations , Amazon must notify the UK tax authorities and stop delivery services to the seller, otherwise it will face fines from the UK tax authorities or even the cancellation of its warehousing license.

Therefore, Amazon will definitely pay great attention to this review, but there are exceptions.

because This measure is aimed at overseas sellers who need to use FBA warehouses, so sellers who do their own delivery, have businesses registered in the EU/UK, or shipments from the EU to the UK will not be affected.

So what should British sellers who are affected and need to provide IEN do? Let me share two situations with you.

The first

Sellers who have provided their own UK VAT number (VRN) for customs clearance can ask their freight forwarders for the "EU Single Customs Declaration Form", which is C88, which contains the IEN code we need (it may also be called "Import Number", "Entry Number" or "Customs Entry Number"), and upload it in the background.

The second

There are also many sellers who use freight forwarding channels that include taxes. Sellers cannot obtain valid IEN codes through this channel because Amazon collects the seller’s VAT number while collecting IEN. Therefore, the IEN code generated by the seller’s own tax number for customs clearance is valid.

Sellers who do not have an IEN code must also update the IEN information of their shipments in the backend. In the IEN status, confirm that your shipment "cannot provide IEN". After successful saving, the IEN status will change to "Complete"

Please note that this confirmation step must be completed, otherwise Amazon will regard you as "not complying with UK VAT and customs obligations" and will directly restrict your entry into the warehouse after 60 days.

To put it simply, this time Amazon only needs to fulfill its obligation to collect sellers' warehouse inventory information, so whether there is an IEN or not, just update the IEN status as required.

Sellers who want to know how to upload IEN in the background, scan the code and chat with me to learn about the uploading steps and methods~

PS. If you want to join the seller discussion group, you can also private message me to let me add you to the group