The 2019 German Packaging Act

[1786davycrockett]

While I have read more information about the 2019 German Packaging Act, and how it will impact all international sales to Germany (including eBay), as the law is written it seems to primarily effect the primary distributors of pre-packaged items (please correct me if I am misinterpreting this law -- it is not entirely clear).

However, if an eBay seller is NOT a primary distributor, is it still necessary to provide all the information that has been requested?

And, if an eBay seller is selling items which do not seem to be applicable to the 2019 Packaging Act (such as old books and old magazines, which is what I sell), is it necessary to provide this information?

In addition, since I am just an individual seller (and NOT a huge business entity), the "tax id" which is required by this act would be my personal Social Security number, which I am quite hesitant to share with a foreign government.   And thus, according to the  eBay memo regarding the 2019 German Packaging Act:

"What happens if I don’t register by the July 1 deadline?  

eBay has a legal obligation to ensure that all our B2C sellers are compliant. If you do not take the necessary steps by the deadline, we will be legally required to restrict your selling privileges for the German market. "

Which is okay for me -- but I'm not sure how much this is going to impact other American eBay sellers, as the 2019 German Packaging Act seems to infer that eBay sellers will be financially responsible for additional recycling fees for packages sent to Germany.  Will eBay be billing individual sellers for these fees, or will Germany be billing the individual sellers?

Do any other eBay sellers have further clarifications regarding this Act, as the deadline is July 1.

Thanks, folks!

[stephenmorgan]

Yea you do not have that many, I do not have that many and other sellers do not have that many. 

I wonder overall how much of an impact this will have on fees collected by eBay?

[shipscript]

eBay does not pay the recycling fees, although eBay could be liable for up to $200,000 in fines if they don't comply and allow their sellers to ship "trash" to Germany.  That is why eBay must block non-compliant sellers from shipping to Germany. I doubt there will be any fees on eBay's end associated with seller compliance.

The sellers pay the fees directly to Germany by enrolling in the licensing program.  Most sellers will sign up for cardboard packing material and bubblewrap plastics. Other sellers will also have to include retail packaging in their fees.  The minimum annual cost to the seller is €39 (approx $41), which can buy an annual combination of up to 10KG (22lb) plastic and 10KG (22lb) cardboard on the cheapest license, and the prices go up from there.

Below is the fee calculator (remember that the comma in the European value is our decimal point, so  fractional weights can be entered after the comma). The calculator starts with 1KG paper waste:

https://www.lizenzero.de/en/packaging-volume-calculator/?number=LZV-2022

[shipscript]

---

@ulfesharpe wrote:

Let's hope it's the only country doing that ...

---

@ulfesharpe 

During my perusal of scads of documents on this topic, I encountered something about Germany simply being the leading edge of a Euro plan that is already in place. So I suspect it will sweep Europe as soon as Germany shows the way. 😞

[mr_lincoln]

@shipscript  Ultimately eBay has to advise Sellers on their venue what if anything is required of them with regard to the Act.  I understand the reasoning behind larger retailers (and that includes large eBay Store Owners who are Business accounts).  They also need to provide guidance for Individual selling accounts because I doubt there is an infrastructure in Germany that sends a bill back to individual shippers from other countries ... and there is certainly no infrastructure here in the US that will try to force those Sellers to pay foreign bills they get in the mail ... not going to happen.  And I also don't see Germany starting a database of foreign individuals who ship packages in so they can check them at their boarder for outstanding fees to either collect from the German recipient OR simply reject them at the boarder and put a Return to sender stick on them.  Of course all of that is just for the outer package not to mention what may be inside the package.

As it relates to individual Sellers on eBay they can certainly pay at the counter and thus have NOTHING on the package indicating that it was sold through eBay, Etsy, Posmark, Bonaza, Mercari, etc.  Or even in my case sending stuff to someone I know there ... its from me to them, that's it, period.  Is German customs going to open those packages to see what's inside???  I can actually switch to all paper packing inside around the items I am shipping to eliminate bubble wrap, peanuts, etc. but that may or may not be necessary depending on how German citizens handle their own trash removal and recycling on a residential level.

[mr_lincoln]

---

@apmtrade wrote:

To my understanding, only business sellers registered with VAT.

 To sign up directly on the German reg. site. you will need a VAT # ,otherwise they will not accept registration..

From eBay UK  ( Uk not a member of the Eur. Union ) eBay UK kat@ebay. " I have confirmed with the relevant department in eBay.

For now, private sellers do not need to register. These new packaging regulations for Germany apply to business sellers "

---

Thanks for posting ... you actually beat me to the punch here, I was also going to log on to the UK Community and ask about it.  And as @shipscript pointed out in a recent post, this is only the beginning for the countries of Europe with regard to waste materials used in packaging ... eventually this will be a global issue.

[a_c_green]

---

@mr_lincoln wrote:

---

@apmtrade wrote:

To my understanding, only business sellers registered with VAT.

 To sign up directly on the German reg. site. you will need a VAT # ,otherwise they will not accept registration..

From eBay UK  ( Uk not a member of the Eur. Union ) eBay UK kat@ebay. " I have confirmed with the relevant department in eBay.

For now, private sellers do not need to register. These new packaging regulations for Germany apply to business sellers "

---

Thanks for posting ... you actually beat me to the punch here, I was also going to log on to the UK Community and ask about it.

---

I'm relieved to see that private sellers are not included. To be honest, I've been reading all this as much as I can, but I've been wavering between two opinions:

1. This is ridiculous (okay, not a very scientific opinion, but there you are), and also
    
2. This cannot possibly scale. If Aunt Sofia wanders into a US Post Office to mail a package back to Uncle Klaus in the home country, how would the USPS be expected to handle the paperwork? Charge her a bunch of money and demand to see her Social Security card? There are plenty of small-time eBay sellers who are no doubt completely unaware of any of this... are they going to find all their packages turned around at the border? Turned around at their own Post Offices?

I can see big companies whose inbound shipments to Germany are plentiful and obvious, and I have no doubt that they have already been made aware and made the proper preparations, but anything this complicated that's aimed at the general public would need way more publicity than it's had so far in order to prevent utter chaos on Day 1, so there has always been this thought in the back of my mind that "This cannot possibly involve little old me."

[brandsonhands]

Maybe not much impact now because due to VAT and other EU regulations, it became not easy/cheap to buy on ebay. Moreover, it is a bit of headache to ship to EU nowadays already-have to find a category of an item and put a number of that classification (forgot the name of it)-if shipping via PS. It used to be much easier - just put a name of an item in customs; now it is not enough. Especially Germany and Austria require those numbers.

But again-we, sellers, already have lost pretty large Russian market, now no more Germans...NZ is having issues with their "covid" restrictions - still, so that market is also excluded. I personally like shipping internationally, but only to those locations I consider safe.

[apmtrade]

More EU countries have, will implement the Packing Act.

Additional Packaging Act for sales to Austria from 2023 

Shipping to Austria: Legislative changes bring comprehensive novelties for online retailers from 202...

[mr_lincoln]

---

@a_c_green wrote:

---

@mr_lincoln wrote:

---

@apmtrade wrote:

To my understanding, only business sellers registered with VAT.

 To sign up directly on the German reg. site. you will need a VAT # ,otherwise they will not accept registration..

From eBay UK  ( Uk not a member of the Eur. Union ) eBay UK kat@ebay. " I have confirmed with the relevant department in eBay.

For now, private sellers do not need to register. These new packaging regulations for Germany apply to business sellers "

---

Thanks for posting ... you actually beat me to the punch here, I was also going to log on to the UK Community and ask about it.

---

I'm relieved to see that private sellers are not included. To be honest, I've been reading all this as much as I can, but I've been wavering between two opinions:

1. This is ridiculous (okay, not a very scientific opinion, but there you are), and also
    
2. This cannot possibly scale. If Aunt Sofia wanders into a US Post Office to mail a package back to Uncle Klaus in the home country, how would the USPS be expected to handle the paperwork? Charge her a bunch of money and demand to see her Social Security card? There are plenty of small-time eBay sellers who are no doubt completely unaware of any of this... are they going to find all their packages turned around at the border? Turned around at their own Post Offices?

I can see big companies whose inbound shipments to Germany are plentiful and obvious, and I have no doubt that they have already been made aware and made the proper preparations, but anything this complicated that's aimed at the general public would need way more publicity than it's had so far in order to prevent utter chaos on Day 1, so there has always been this thought in the back of my mind that "This cannot possibly involve little old me."

---

@a_c_green   Well, USPS will charge the original Shipper the return shipping for an undelivered and returned package to Germany ... THAT much I know because they told me that earlier this year when I shipped something over there ... I suspect it will apply to all UK countries.

[apmtrade]

Info: Additional Packing Act for 30 Eu. countries. 

https://verpackungslizenz24.de/en/eu-packaging-licence/

I hope eBay will do its homework and pay close attention to the issue before the EU countries' Packing Act

will be implemented in most of the EU. 

I do not need to describe the impact it will create for sellers and  eBay's revenue

[stephenmorgan]

It is a shame because I know eBay has put a lot of effort into making is fairly easy to sell worldwide and with these changes it could undo much of what they have accomplished.

I would have never tried to sell international on my own and only do it because of the ease of using eBay.

I remember back in the 1970's it was quite an ordeal trying to purchase something internationally.  Some places required payment with something like a Post office International Payment Coupon and you could wait months for your item

[1786davycrockett]

"Info: Additional Packing Act for 30 Eu. countries. 

https://verpackungslizenz24.de/en/eu-packaging-licence/"

So the 2019 German Packaging Act was just the appetizer, huh?

Thankfully, I'm on a diet.

Guess I won't be worrying so much anymore about my packages arriving safely at their European destinations.  

There won't be any.

Talk about isolationism. . ..

[lepke1979]

---

@apmtrade wrote:

To my understanding, only business sellers registered with VAT.

 To sign up directly on the German reg. site. you will need a VAT # ,otherwise they will not accept registration..

From eBay UK  ( Uk not a member of the Eur. Union ) eBay UK kat@ebay. " I have confirmed with the relevant department in eBay.

For now, private sellers do not need to register. These new packaging regulations for Germany apply to business sellers "

---

It's possible new info came out after I stopped paying attention. If that's the case, cool.

I'll see if I can find the other thread. But a blue in that thread said it was accounts registered as business. Personal was ok. But how Germany determines that is unclear.

And it applied whether the package went directly to Germany or not. So you'd have to get registered even if it went to a reshipper like GSP or whomever first before Germany. Which is insane. Particularly when outside of maybe seeing where the account is registered, you have no idea where the package is going after it hits the reshipper.

But again, some new info may have come to light.

[lepke1979]

---

@shipscript wrote:

eBay does not pay the recycling fees, although eBay could be liable for up to $200,000 in fines if they don't comply and allow their sellers to ship "trash" to Germany.  That is why eBay must block non-compliant sellers from shipping to Germany. I doubt there will be any fees on eBay's end associated with seller compliance.

The sellers pay the fees directly to Germany by enrolling in the licensing program.  Most sellers will sign up for cardboard packing material and bubblewrap plastics. Other sellers will also have to include retail packaging in their fees.  The minimum annual cost to the seller is €39 (approx $41), which can buy an annual combination of up to 10KG (22lb) plastic and 10KG (22lb) cardboard on the cheapest license, and the prices go up from there.

Below is the fee calculator (remember that the comma in the European value is our decimal point, so  fractional weights can be entered after the comma). The calculator starts with 1KG paper waste:

https://www.lizenzero.de/en/packaging-volume-calculator/?number=LZV-2022

---

Who doesn't love bureaucracy?

[nyccowgirl7]

---

@carlmarxx wrote:

You  can by Blocking Germany    for not shipping too . GSP will only ship to country's    that aren't on your   block list . 

---

As I understand it, blocking countries you ship to ONLY blocks direct sales to that country.  Someone please step in if I don't have my info straight, but I have been told by ebay reps previously - as I have run into country-specific issues before, ie knives w England - that as a seller there is NO way to block individual countries from GSP sales.  If something is banned in a certain country, your only option is to choose to ship direct to other international destinations or else leave it as US only.

As a side note, I had an item blocked from GSP recently and no one after hours of going around in circles and promising to follow up has been able to give me a straight answer.  How the hell are we as sellers supposed to know what's allowed and follow the rules if ebay doesn't even know?!? 

I actually had a rep tell me that there was a list of exclusions for certain kitchen implements that fall under England's no-knives thing but that SHE WAS NOT ALLOWED TO TELL ME what items were on the list.  Huh...?  These are the things you're allowed to sell, but I'm not allowed to tell you what they are.  Bureaucracy, indeed.