November Newsletter - Christmas, Books and GPSR!

[Leon]

Welcome to the latest Pendraken newsletter!

We're hurtling full-speed towards Christmas so make sure to get your orders placed asap and please allow a little longer for us to process them!




Christmas Orders!

Another year has flown by and the winter nights are here, so it must be time for Christmas!  We'll be working extra hard to get all of your orders cast up and sent out for you but please make sure to get your Christmas orders placed by the deadlines above, to ensure that they arrive in time to go under your tree.  The last deadline for international orders is tomorrow, so don't be late!




The Big Book Sale!

We need to clear some space in the Pendraken shop for new products, so we've decided to run a Big Book Sale!

Over 300 titles have been reduced down to £5 or less so head over and take a look here. There's some real bargains in there too, with some of these books priced at over £20 usually.  The sale will be running throughout November, so there's only a couple of days left!

PLEASE NOTE: Shipping is a flat rate of £3.50 for all UK packages, anyone outside the UK will need to contact us for a shipping quote.




New 10mm Feudal Japanese scenery!

It's been a while but we've got another little batch of the 10mm Castle Arts range back into production, with a small bridge now available along with a Shinto portal gate and Temple Pagoda.  These are all available on our website here.




Gift Cards!

Not sure what Pendraken goodies to get a loved-one for Christmas?  Grab them a Gift Card instead and let them choose for themselves!  These digital vouchers are available in various values and once purchased you can choose who to send them to.  Gift Cards can be found on our website here.

And why not grab one of our Christmas Diorama Sets while you're there!






New GPSR Regulations

We've had a lot of emails about this recently, as the EU is bringing in new rules next month concerning product safety.  Just to reassure our EU customers, we're currently working on being compliant with the new rules and we will be continuing to sell into the EU.




2024 Shows completed!

After Battleground this past weekend, the 2024 show season is now complete!  We travelled to 15 events this year, racking up over 4000 miles on the road and got to meet and chat to 1000's of customers.  We always enjoy getting out of the workshop and seeing folks in-person, so thank you for coming to see us on our 2024 tour and we'll hopefully see you next year too!


Important Dates

Fri 29th Nov - North America and European Order Deadline
Mon 9th Dec - UK Order Deadline
Wed 25th Dec - Christmas Day!

[sultanbev]

I tried looking at the GPSR regulations and can only conclude that Russian sleeper cell agents have been long since embedded into the EU to disrupt commerce as much as possible, and this is the final outcome of their efforts. It's the "If you are not in the EU you have to appoint an EU representative for your company/goods" that I don't get - WTF, how is that actually gonna work?

I see the potential for some rip-off businesses being set up in the dodgier parts of Rotterdam harbour, who'll 'be your representative' for a small fee every month of course, who'll process the paperwork inefficiently but suddenly disappear when the safety of an item is questioned.

For all the rest, as long as you stick a label on saying:
"Do not eat. Do not poke yourself in the eye with it. Do not give it to children or pets.It is completely safe." Surely that would cover it?

An honest label on every product worldwide would say:
"Of course this product is unsafe from an ecological point of view. It is an item manufactured by global industrial civilisation, extracting resources from Mother Earth via the use of fossil fuels, and giving nothing back but pollution, leading to toxification of the environment and adding CO2 to the atmosphere, fuelling the existing global warming and the potential threat to all life on the planet. But, in the interim, it might make someone HAPPY, you overzealous bureaucrats."

All EU officials who come up with stuff like this should be sent a copy of Joseph Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies, they might realise something.
 

[Leon]

I tried looking at the GPSR regulations and can only conclude that Russian sleeper cell agents have been long since embedded into the EU to disrupt commerce as much as possible, and this is the final outcome of their efforts. It's the "If you are not in the EU you have to appoint an EU representative for your company/goods" that I don't get - WTF, how is that actually gonna work?

I'm not entirely sure myself, I've had a meeting with the Department for Trade but they've not been given any guidance from the EU either.  I'm on a webinar on Friday morning to hopefully find out more.

I see the potential for some rip-off businesses being set up in the dodgier parts of Rotterdam harbour, who'll 'be your representative' for a small fee every month of course, who'll process the paperwork inefficiently but suddenly disappear when the safety of an item is questioned.

Yep, already out there.  We've been quoted 1800 Euros per year for an EU rep, because it's based on the number of product 'types' that you export.  So metal miniatures would be a different 'type' to plastic miniatures, paints would be different, decals, bases, rules, etc. 

For all the rest, as long as you stick a label on saying:
"Do not eat. Do not poke yourself in the eye with it. Do not give it to children or pets.It is completely safe." Surely that would cover it?

Unfortunately not if everything goes to their plan.  The EU rep is supposed to be the point of return for any EU customers too, so if they have an issue with their order they can send it back to an EU location rather than paying international postage. The EU rep would then need to arrange getting the goods back to us here in the UK.

[Raider4]

And at what point do you start to think "Is it really worth it?"? 

[Raider4]

Just seen a post on the Baccus website - they're suspending sales to the EU, at least for now. 

[fred.]

There is a major thread on this over on LAF - lots of the smaller manufacturers are at least suspending sales to the EU as the effort to understand and comply with the regulation is too high vs the volume of sales. 

Feels the law is aimed at huge drop-shipping setups (Temu, Ali-express etc) but has caught up lots of small businesses too. 

[Leon]

There is a major thread on this over on LAF - lots of the smaller manufacturers are at least suspending sales to the EU as the effort to understand and comply with the regulation is too high vs the volume of sales.

Feels the law is aimed at huge drop-shipping setups (Temu, Ali-express etc) but has caught up lots of small businesses too.

It's exactly that, they're hitting a nail in with a sledgehammer.  I understand the point of the regulations but it's being implemented with nowhere near enough preparation or information.  I've seen a lot of those companies ceasing EU sales too, which seems a bit knee-jerk to me when we don't know exactly what's going to happen yet.  There's a good chance that the Dec 13th deadline gets bumped as not enough people are ready for it.

[Seagull Two Zero]

Uniquely GPSR will apply to one region of the UK. Yes, Norn Iron (Northern Ireland). However, it is one thing to de jury apply the law, another to de facto enforce it, as it is a political hot potato, and Royal Mail delivery.

Baccus are on record that it will be 'business as usual' to Northern Ireland.

[Seagull Two Zero]

Tonight it was announced that the Northern Ireland Assembly has applied the 'Stormont Break' to the application of GPSR in Northern Ireland. 30 MLAs supplied the necessary signatures to meet the requirements of the Windsor Framework.

GPSR suspended as far as N Ireland is concerned.

Happy Christmas.

[Ben Waterhouse]

Tonight it was announced that the Northern Ireland Assembly has applied the 'Stormont Break' to the application of GPSR in Northern Ireland. 30 MLAs supplied the necessary signatures to meet the requirements of the Windsor Framework.

GPSR suspended as far as N Ireland is concerned.

Happy Christmas.

Excellent news.

[Leon]

Tonight it was announced that the Northern Ireland Assembly has applied the 'Stormont Break' to the application of GPSR in Northern Ireland. 30 MLAs supplied the necessary signatures to meet the requirements of the Windsor Framework.

GPSR suspended as far as N Ireland is concerned.

That's interesting info, I'll pass that on to a few of the other companies.  Our DfT guy expected the whole EU to suspend it before the deadline, as they've not prepared anywhere near enough to implement it properly.  Instead it looks like each EU nation will be muddling through it in their own way.

[Seagull Two Zero]

From the intel available it would be prudent to major on the EU countries whose wargamers are your main customers in terms of purchase value.

Instruct your DfT guy to target these markets and advise you on what that they require.

[Leon]

Instruct your DfT guy to target these markets and advise you on what that they require.

I think that's kinda the problem as the EU hasn't provided much information about how this will be implemented, and the individual countries aren't supposed to be doing things their own way.  The only way we'll find out how they're doing it looks to be by just sending the packages out and seeing what happens, which isn't ideal.

We'll get all of our compliance paperwork in place for what we've been told so far and then wait for further developments I think.