Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon’s UK FBA operations will be split from the EU

tamebay.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 219 posts

Re: Amazon’s UK FBA operations will be split from the EU

#41

Post by tonyedgecombe »

barrenko wrote: post #17
IAmEveryone wrote: post #4

Sometimes, I feel like to achieve closure, I'd really need a thread where the people endlessly and repetitively insisting that Brexit is easy, would not impact trade, and would be worse for the EU than for the UK would show the grace of admitting that they very wrong, so very and obviously wrong. Similar for the beneficial effects of Hydroxychloroquine, for California basically having achieved herd immunity in May, a…

Easy in the short run is hard in the long. We're all better off as loosely connected and trade oriented but autonomous neighbours.

We tried that before and it didn't work out too well.

Re: Amazon’s UK FBA operations will be split from the EU

#42

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

smcl wrote: post #21
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least now you get to keep those 350 million GBP a week. /s

I really wish someone bothered to hold his feet to the fire on that one. He just got to chuckle and shrug it off, and the reaction from most seems to be “lol oh that’s our Boris”

The way my British friends told me, nobody really took the brexit vote seriously and treated it like a Lord Buckethead, Boaty McBoat Face joke.

At least until the mic dropped and the consequences of their joke vote became clear.

Re: Amazon’s UK FBA operations will be split from the EU

#43

Post by krona »

sdoering wrote: post #22
barrenko wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy in the short run is hard in the long. We're all better off as loosely connected and trade oriented but autonomous neighbours.

I find the idea interesting. Do you have data for me to study on the effects of such a political/economical system? Would love to find out more.

Do you mean the effects of different forms of economic planning (centralized/decentralized) and democratic decision making? No, there is no research or data available, at all.

Re: Amazon’s UK FBA operations will be split from the EU

#44

Post by viraptor »

Does anyone know what could be a specific reason leading to this change? I mean, deeper than "no single market", what would prevent Amazon from running the same operation, potentially with slightly higher fees to offset relevant transport/import taxes. They ran marketplaces at crazy prices before, like shipping to Australia before local distribution centres.

Re: Amazon’s UK FBA operations will be split from the EU

#45

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

rtempaccount1 wrote: post #25
the_duke wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why is this a bombshell (implying a surprise), rather than the natural, expected consequence of the UK leaving the customs union? I'd imagine continuing the current scheme would add a lot of regulatory and procedural complexity for Amazon, which they are unwilling to handle. Isn't this something that was expected by sellers?

I'd imagine it depends on how much attention the operators in this marketplace have been paying. If they've believed UK Government rhetoric about how Brexit will be a smooth process that will enhance the UK's trading opportunities, this may come as a surprise. There are (IMO) a reasonable number of UK citizens and businesses who haven't grasped the likely consequences of what's happening on 1/1/21

Oh yeah, and the current pandemic and its economic effects aren't helping the UK's brexit issues.

Re: Amazon’s UK FBA operations will be split from the EU

#47

Post by hellofunk »

Reason077 wrote: post #29

So stupid! The UK voted to keep Europeans from coming over here and taking our jobs and seducing our women with their sophisticated accents. There was nothing about blocking European goods and European fulfilment centres. Boris Johnson even assured us that it was going to be easy to get a "great deal" on free trade. This is not the Brexit we voted for!!

> and our women with their sophisticated accents

I also feel particularly terrible for women across Europe who will less often be catcalled by drunken Brits. It’s really the end of an era.

Re: Amazon’s UK FBA operations will be split from the EU

#48

Post by AnssiH »

Ambroos wrote: post #28

This is not going to be fun for Ireland. Ireland doesn't have its own regional Amazon, but the UK one would have great fast shipping. I wonder if shipping from Amazon DE or FR will be more popular in the future.

Amazon might end free shipping to Ireland from amazon.co.uk and start doing it from amazon.de instead.

This switch was done to a number of other European countries within the last decade (inc. Finland).

edit: OTOH, I just realized Ireland uses the UK electrical plug, which complicates buying electric stuff from amazon.de a bit...

Re: Amazon’s UK FBA operations will be split from the EU

#49

Post by scaryclam »

intsunny wrote: post #3

I fail to see the "bombshell" here. This is what everyone expected when leaving the EU single market. The only bombshell would be if the UK negotiators managed to prevent a hard Brexit. Given the current track record of their leading political party, this seems unlikely.

Yes, "bombshell" is a pretty silly way of putting it. Any business with an even semi-competent leadership has been planning on the assumption that these types of things will be gone and are mitigating the issues as far as they can.

Re: Amazon’s UK FBA operations will be split from the EU

#50

Post by frereubu »

viraptor wrote: post #44

Does anyone know what could be a specific reason leading to this change? I mean, deeper than "no single market", what would prevent Amazon from running the same operation, potentially with slightly higher fees to offset relevant transport/import taxes. They ran marketplaces at crazy prices before, like shipping to Australia before local distribution centres.

Because it's still entirely unclear what the arrangements for trade will be, despite the fact that the transition agreement ends on 31st December. For example, the UK government are planning a number of huge lorry parks near the English Channel crossings to deal with new customs arrangements, whatever they may be, but they've only bought one location so far: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/12/local-anger...

Edit: to be clearer about what my point is, Amazon relies enormously on friction-free shipping. It might make more sense for them to plan not to ship across a border for a while until it becomes clear what the logistics will be of shipping across that border, rather than guessing what it will be like and getting it horribly wrong. The possible outcomes range from a decent free-trade agreement with minimal disruption (although that seems vanishingly unlikely now) to a hard Brexit (i.e. no agreement) and an immediate sharp stop to frictionless cross-border trade.

Post reply on HN