Bonded warehouse advice required

[Brena98]

Hi Everyone

I am working for a craft spirit producer from N.Macedonia. I have been struggling with finding a way to place our product on the UK market for a while. More precisely, I have found several buyers willing to sell our product at their premises but are not distributors and are not importers. Mainly hotels and liquor stores. I was advised that using bonded warehouse is the best practice in these cases. Can anyone tell me how do bonded warehouses functioning in terms of documentation? What is not clear to me is who is the importer of the goods in such cases? Or, When exporting the goods to the bonded warehouse, who will I have to invoice?
Thank you in advance for your help

 

[Scalloway]

If you are importing goods into a bonded warehouse it will just be a place to store the goods. If it is not your own premises then you will pay storage charges.

You will invoice your customers from the bond.

More information on bonded warehouses here.

How to use a customs warehouse

Find out what you need to do when importing goods from outside the UK to a customs warehouse.

www.gov.uk

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

I think you also need to find a bonded warehouse that specifically can hold alcohol.

Whether you pay the duty on arrival or when sold/distributed, you will have to pay it! What you need to look at is how you manage the unbonding, as warehouses will charge for each transaction, which will affect the bottom line.

 

[Adam Le Grand]

Hi Everyone

I am working for a craft spirit producer from N.Macedonia. I have been struggling with finding a way to place our product on the UK market for a while. More precisely, I have found several buyers willing to sell our product at their premises but are not distributors and are not importers. Mainly hotels and liquor stores. I was advised that using bonded warehouse is the best practice in these cases. Can anyone tell me how do bonded warehouses functioning in terms of documentation? What is not clear to me is who is the importer of the goods in such cases? Or, When exporting the goods to the bonded warehouse, who will I have to invoice?
Thank you in advance for your help

Are you sales going to be mainly B2B or are you also running a B2C strategy as well?

Do you have any evidence of there being a market for your product in the UK?

We deal with a lot of imported alcohol but it is a really tough market to crack, especially following COVID as it appears everyone gave importing alcohol a go. We've never seen so many enquiries for people wanting to ship out Rum, Gin, Whisky and Wine.

With regards to your bonded warehouse question though I would say that bonded warehouses only really come into their own when you are handling large volumes of stock and looking to store for long periods of time. If you're looking to import in and ship out to fulfil orders then you just need an eCommerce Fulfilment partner.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

@Adam Le Grand I constantly speak to people who want to import alcohol - when you highlight the impact of UK duty on their costs/pricing, most people either forget it or try a batch, lose money and probably drink the remaining stock!

 

[Adam Le Grand]

@Adam Le Grand I constantly speak to people who want to import alcohol - when you highlight the impact of UK duty on their costs/pricing, most people either forget it or try a batch, lose money and probably drink the remaining stock!

I don't like to be negative when people are looking for advise with regards to their business but I do have to say, at the moment, I certainly wouldn't be looking to sell alcohol in the UK. Market is really saturated and production costs are through the roof. The alcohol based customers that we have in at the moment have had a long, hard slog to get where they are.

We've got alcohol coming out of our ears from the numerous people that thought it would be a great idea to ship alcohol out throughout COVID and then just gave up when they realised how hard it was.

That said. If someone has a great product, great vision, strong work ethic and a gap in the market then go for it. We have seen the odd success story recently.