To our British purchasers: Ebooks Direct after the Brexit transition period, from 1/1/21
If you're located in Great Britain and you've considered purchasing from us, please note that starting January 1, 2021—with deep regret—we will no longer be selling our ebooks directly to UK customers.
The upcoming changes in the VAT treatment of overseas goods sold to UK customers mean that the burden of charging VAT on inbound items moves to the entity selling the goods. This, as it stands, is exactly the way that the Ebooks Direct store has been handling UK VAT since 2016, when the EU's "One Stop Shop" for the sale and remittance of VAT on digital goods was phased in.
However, since the UK will no longer be operating in cooperation with EU tax bodies after the transition period ends, at that point the changes in the article linked to above will take effect. Those changes mean that companies functioning as online marketplaces (OMPs) selling directly to UK customers must (at considerable expense) register with the UK VAT office, and file remittance paperwork with the VAT office for every item sold. (This paperwork would have to be filed even when "selling" items that are below the VAT thresholds, or free. We would be entirely willing to simply decline to charge UK customers VAT, but the new regulations won't permit that.)
Ebooks Direct qualifies as an OMP under the new UK VAT rules. (Please note that the recently-agreed trade arrangement between the EU and the UK makes no difference to this situation.) We've crunched the numbers, and with regret, we find that the amount of business we do in a given year with UK purchasers doesn't cover even the expense of the initial VAT office registration—let alone what handling the ongoing paperwork would cost us in terms of time and labor.
So, as of 00:01 on January 1, 2021, we will no longer sell our ebooks directly into the UK market. To this end, our products are now being masked from viewing by visitors with UK IP addresses. We apologize for this inconvenience while we develop a better solution.
ETA: The better solution is on its way! As soon as it's finally ready (during Q2 of 2024), UK visitors will automatically be redirected to our new website at ebooksdirect-annex.com. This site will not sell books directly, but will link to our ebooks' pages at platforms such as Amazon, Google Books, Apple Books, and Kobo (as we get our EBD ebooks signed up to these sites). All of these platforms have infrastructure in place to collect and report UK VAT -- a job we'll happily leave to them.
That said: ebooks that are being exclusively offered at Ebooks Direct will no longer be available for direct purchase by UK readers. Our apologies; we had hoped it wouldn't come to this. ...With some exceptions, exclusives will normally be released to other platforms in 30-60 days. Once the EbooksDirect-Annex.com site is open, we'll also be starting a monthly newsletter at which UK users can be notified when new releases from Ebooks Direct have "gone wide" to other platforms. A signup form will be available at the bottom of all pages at the new site: we hope you'll avail yourself of it!
Meanwhile, if you are a former Ebooks Direct purchaser with a UK address: we will of course continue to honor our promise to (on your request) replace at no cost any previously purchased ebooks you've lost through platform change or misadventure. Just email the store's customer service email address at EbooksDirectStore@gmail.com, and we'll sort things out for you. However, you won't be able to make any new purchases from 00:01 on 1/1/21. We're very sorry about that.
And to all our current and previous UK customers: thank you again for your custom. Here, on our main and oldest platform, we'll miss you.
0 comments /