Has anyone grappled with 'Extended User Responsibility' for sales to France and Germany?

[padraicpaul91]

Just came across this yesterday whilst editing my business policies.

In a nut shell, ebay business sellers to German and French customers are now obliged to register and contribute fees for the life cycle of the sold items, especially disposal/recycling.

Whilst I generally support such initiatives, I am left unsure as to whether it applies in my case or for all sellers into these countries. I have read the relevant articles on ebay and the appropriate French site for recycling paper products, especially packaging (but it kept reverting to French when you follow links). 

The fee for a small volume business re paper based packaging is a flat rate 80 euros p.a. in France, I think. But that is more than I would make in a year to France.

On the other hand, the only penalty that appears to apply is that listings that do not have my unique identifying number will be removed from ebay in those countries. This has not occurred to my items as yet. Confiscation or return of packages was not mentioned.

I have tried ebay CS but it's all new to them and it was suggested I contact ebay support in the respective countries.

[sugar249]

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@padraicpaul91 wrote:

Thank you for such a detailed response. I was also surprised to find that these regulations have been in place for so long without any consequence to my parcels thus far. Yes, eBay is always way behind the play. I would think they have only reacted now due to hostile complaints by buyers and sellers when  parcels are returned.

My major supplier, a small business, had been perplexed about why several, but not all, sales to France had been returned with no understandable explanation. How is a small time sole trader supposed to keep up with changing regulations around the planet? Yet another knock to small business. He and I have decided that our minimal trade with  EU customers is not worth the bother and expense.

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Not sure why you are blaming Ebay for not being up with the latest requirements,  Ebay is a listing platform,  it is the sellers responsibility to know and understand the regulations of a market they are selling into.

A good business person will keep up to date with regulations of markets they are targeting,  

[digital*ghost]

Sure, but eBay should be able to inform their members how to comply with regulations they themselves are obliged to enforce. 

The only reason I know as much as I do about it is because another platform who had to implement the same requirements:

Announced the changes in a way that couldn't be missed (i.e. a big banner on seller's home page)

Provided information on how to comply

Linked to resources to find out more

And then it became a collaborative community effort as well, where people researched, shared more resources, and other information from their own experiences... kinda like how forums like this will do that, occasionally. 

eBay hasn't even made an announcement, near as I can tell (the EPR thing for France started being enforced by marketplaces Jan, 2022, Germany was earlier, it should not be "new" to ebay).