November 2009

Welcome to CCL’s November 2009 newsletter

As the holiday season approaches, we know that for some of our customers, work goes a little quieter, where for others, it gets a great deal busier. Whatever your needs, we can help – not only with customs clearance for your imports and exports, but by connecting you with our network of national and global transportation specialists, freight forwarders, storage services and more. Don’t forget to make our friendly and approachable Customer Services team on +44 (0)20 8231 0900 your first port of call.

Lunching with Legends: Most people can only dream of sitting down to lunch with World Cup winners. But we did it with our guests, last week, at an event hosted by Keymail UK, for executives from the mail, express and freight industries. To all those who attended, we hope you had as great a time as we did – and to those that couldn’t make it, don’t miss the next one! See a report of the event here and a fabulous selection of photos here.

Conferences events: We’ll be on the road again in the New Year, and whilst it’s yet to be confirmed, we’re expecting to be at these events: The 2nd WCA Family Annual Worldwide Conference, this year being held from 14-17 January in Bangkok, Thailand; The Triangle World Mail and Express Americas Conference and Exhibition, 22-23 February in Miami, Florida, USA; The 15th Annual WWPC 2010 Convention, 18-22 April in Cancun. If you’re planning to attend any of these events, let us know – it’s always great to meet up and put a face to a name.

Our featured freight forwarder: This month we’re featuring USA based Excalibur International (www.excaliburintl.com). Operating out of California, the team at Excalibur International provide a full range of services from small package courier to airfreight shipments and specialise in express courier, with weekend and timed deliveries throughout the western USA. They also offer very competitive airfreight and courier rates from LAX to European destinations. Excalibur International’s client base includes courier and air freight companies in the UK, Holland and Germany and media and entertainment enterprises. You’ll find details of their services and rates online (use agent login: laxagent and password: excalibur) at www.excaliburintl.com.

The Christmas rush: If you’re in the fortunate position of enjoying a seasonal boost to your trade, and are importing bulk shipments before breaking down to individual consignments you may be interested to know about the facilities we can offer you. Our ERTS bonded warehouse facility allows us to store your consolidated shipment when it arrives in the UK. We can then handle the customs clearance for you, break your shipment down into individual consignments and then onward ship for you, to multiple end-user/customer addresses around the UK and Europe. Contact our Customer Services team on +44 (0)20 8231 0900 to find out more.

VAT’s a pain: Announced at the last budget, changes to cross-border VAT rules are coming into effect from 1st January 2010. The changes represent a significant reform of the VAT regime applying to services and introduce important changes to the intra-EU reporting regime for goods. To comply, businesses will need to make changes to their VAT accounting and reporting processes. Find out more and assess whether these changes affect you on the HMRC web site here.

Respite from Royal Mail strikes: Earlier this month the Communication Workers Union called off its planned series of postal strikes, at least until the New Year, to allow for fresh talks. This will be a big relief to the many thousands of small businesses who depend on Royal Mail to deliver their products as festive gifts. However, anticipating the possibility that the strikes problem may return in the New Year, we urge our readers to have plans in place for alternative courier and delivery services.

Who do you know? We’re always on the lookout for new customers – businesses who import into the UK and Europe on an occasional or regular basis. We can save them money, and time. If you know a business we should be talking to, and can get us an introduction, we’ll give you a big, loud and proud ‘thank-you’ in our next newsletter – that’s your name, logo and web contact details going out to our database of well over 1,000 readers. So, who do you know, who you might like to introduce to Customs Clearance Ltd?

To cut a long story short – Here’s another customs clearance vignette – we call it “Coffee Break Lite”....

It’s started already. That endless stream of mums and dads, often with the very tinies in tow, serious ankle-biters. One after another, they’re pacing the store, looking for one Top Ten Toy or another, this year’s must-have, or the kids will never forgive them. No substitutes will do, no cheap-and-cheerful not-quite-the-real-thing, never mind how bright and colourful the packaging. They want what they want. And as of this morning, I’m pretty much out of everything. Not what you need in the weeks before Christmas and to be frank, I’ve been tearing my hair out and shouting a lot. Hardly full of the joys of the coming season.

I’ve been waiting for my order from our supplier for two weeks now and I only just found out this morning, it’s come in from China, but it’s apparently been stuck in Customs because somebody, somewhere, messed up the paperwork. I want to do unmentionable things to that somebody – they’re costing me money! Anyhow, when my supplier hinted at his problem I dug a little and learned the truth. If only he’d said something before now. I said, I know a guy who works for this outfit in West London called Customs Clearance Limited. Clearing stuff through customs is what they do, day in, day out. They wouldn’t have messed up the paperwork, for sure! I said, get on to them, fast. They’ll pick up the problem and have it sorted in no time.

My supplier twitched a bit at first – nobody likes being told what to do, do they? But I guess he must have made the call as he rang me back a couple of hours later and told me I could expect my Top Ten Toys first-thing tomorrow. And, trust me, that’s not a moment too soon.