.......[This is identical to a seller in the United Kingdom selling goods to, say the U.S.A; V.A.T. would NOT be added to the invoice, as the goods are being exported, but would be subject to Sales Tax once in the U.S.A.].....
Nicely explained Andrew.
About 80% of my website sales used to be to the EU. Now that's almost entirely gone since we left because of huge additional costs now, when EU customer buy from me.
Most of my sales were around £20 or less and would fit in "large letter" size. Before brexit, such a £20 order would cost under a fiver to post to mainland Europe, so the total cost to the customer was under £25.
Now the same £20 order still costs the EU customer £20 because I'm not vat registered (It's a small, part time business with around a tenth of the annual turnover threshold).
Due to having to go through customs, average delivery times have more than tripled, so customers now want to be able to track there orders, so postage has nearly doubled, so the previous £25 cost has become £29. On top of that, they have to pay vat on the goods and the postage, so at 20% that takes it to £34.80. Then there's the customs authority's admin charge, which varies enormously between countries and even the same goods, value & country can have different admin charges! This is usually between £4 and £8. Then there's vat on the admin charge. So, if we say an average of £6+vat, that's another £7.20.
This takes the total cost to £41 for the same item that used to cost them £25.
I'm therefore no longer competitive, so 80% of my business has just gone.
I haven't put the price up on my fastest selling items (that I get made locally) for about 10 years because the costs to me stayed fairly constant until we left the EU. Since then the raw materials (imported by the manufacturers, from the EU) have gone up by about 30%.
2cv parts are the main part of my business and there are still many thousands of them in Europe, (mainly France, Germany, Netherlands) but hardly any outside Europe so I can't replace those lost sales elsewhere.
You ended your post Andrew, by saying that your comments were not to be seen as a pro or anti Brexit statement. I think you can guess what my thoughts are about it!