Delivery & Shipping

HOLIDAY CLOSURE – ADVANCE WARNING

NG Trains won’t be able to fulfil orders between 4th and 22nd September as we’re away driving trains in North Wales.

There will be a warning on the website but you can still place an order for fulfilment after the 22nd.  

26/07/26      SHIPPING TO THE USA 

Sales to the USA are currently suspended because the Orange Clown has moved the tariff goal post yet again. Online systems haven’t yet updated to cope with this. I will try to address is when we reopen after our holidays

26/07/26      SHIPPING TO EUROPE – TEMPORARY ISSUE CAUSING SUSPENSION OF WEB SALES

As of the 1st July the EU changed the rules on sales into the EU. All are now required to pay a duty and a fee at the time of order. Low value order exemptions have been removed. As usual with a rule change there is a gap before websites and sales catch up. As I type this on the 2nd July: –

  • My website doesn’t have the capability to charge the fees. It’s waiting for someone to develop a plugin that does it, and it will probably then need the custom codes for every item adding to each item as that’s the basis of the charging, a fee per custom code.
  • Royal Mail are, unusually, ahead of the game and can handle the post element.

A Temporary Workaround

  1. E-mail me with a list of what you want
  2. I will generate an invoice that includes the fees that the Royal Mail site will generate
  3. You pay the invoice
  4. I send the goods

Shipping to the USA – Update at 17/02/26

USA customers can now place orders via the website and the tariffs which have to be prepaid by the customer are now added to the checkout

The USA has, as part of its tariff nonsense, has suspended/cancelled the mechanism by which low value goods could trade back and forth unaffected by tariffs. The result is that even small shipments will now attract duty and tariffs, which will increase the cost of stuff. To compound the issue, USPS and therefore all its international delivery partners have decided the goods have to be shipped tariff paid.

Shipping to the USA was paused while technology caught up. WooCommerce, the software that creates my shop, now has a plugin to do it. Hilariously its called “TrumpWoo plugin”

There are some things that need to be made clear: –

  1. The shipper pays the tariff.  Wrong, tariff is a fee paid by the importer (aka YOU) to import the goods.
  2. The supplier will eat the tariff. If I am lucky I make 20% on sales and that’s my wages, pays the bills etc. There is no way I can “eat 83%” or whatever number is dreamed up this week.

 

Within the UK

Nearly all deliveries will be by some form of a tracked service. Typically, Royal Mail Tracked 48 or APC courier.  

  • There are three applied rates of postage that the website will apply depending on a mix of weight, shape or value. It’s virtually impossible to plan for every permutation of items ordered, so there is an element of approximation involved.
  • Valuable items will be sent requiring a signature. It’s in both of our interests to be sure it’s in your hands.
  • You can advise a location, it may be left in using the comments box of the order form. Sometimes they won’t leave it without a proof and you do need to be aware that leaving the item without proof of delivery forfeits any claim you may have for non-delivery.

As a one-man band, to cope there has to be some flexibility. For example if I have orders of a shape/weight that needs the courier then that days orders might also go with the courier although at the moment most stuff is going Royal Mail 48 as they’re collecting for free.

Europe

16/02/26 we are shipping to the EU again having found a way to deal with the GPSR regulations.

This is due to the requirements of the

General Product Safety Regulations (GPSR) 2024

These come into force on the 13th and inflict conditions on any business shipping into the EU that are either impossible or unaffordable to comply with. Most restrictive is a requirement to have an REO. This is a representative within the EU responsible for the compliance of the represented products with the rest of the GPSR.

This has been made harder to understand and come to terms with by us having only been given 8 days notice. At the moment there are no guidance notes or practical applications to guide small business on compliance. It’s widely suspected that the effect on small business shipping low value and by the mail packet is an unintended consequence of a regulation aimed at those importing and exporting by the truck load. More precisely its aimed at stopping the far east markets shipping cheap, dangerous and faulty tat.

I hope that when organisations representing small business translate the documents from Government Waffle Speak and start working on practical applications there will be a workaround, and we can resume selling to the EU. What the GPSR is clear on are the penalties for non-compliance. These would wipe out a small business so, unfortunately, the only safe answer is to stop selling to the EU until and unless there is a safe way to do so.

International

International orders ship usually by tracked service and without UK VAT applied. Most ship with Royal Mail International Tracked but that gets very very expensive as the weight increases so we often shop around using a shipping consolidator for the best price whilst trying to keep inside what the website has charged you.