Still Shipping Worldwide, Even When the Rulebook Keeps Changing

There was a time when sending a plate from Dorset to Germany, America or Australia was mostly a question of packing it properly, putting the correct postage on the box and trusting the postal service to do the rest.

Those days feel rather distant.

International shipping has become considerably more complicated in recent years. Brexit changed the relationship between UK businesses and the European Union. VAT rules have changed. Customs requirements have changed. Commodity codes, country of origin information and increasingly detailed electronic customs data have become part of everyday exporting.

And just when everybody begins to understand one set of rules, somebody changes them again.

Despite all of that, MrPottery is still shipping replacement china around the world.

Why International Shipping Matters to Us

Replacement china is, by its nature, an international business.

A customer in France may have spent years looking for one particular Wedgwood plate. Somebody in California might need a Denby serving dish that disappeared from the shops twenty years ago. A dinner service being used in Australia may have started life in Stoke-on-Trent several decades earlier.

The piece they need may just happen to be sitting on a shelf here in Dorset.

For us, that has always been one of the pleasures of replacement china. Pieces travel. Dinner services move with families. Patterns made in Britain found their way around the world, and the pre-loved market now allows individual pieces to find their way back into those sets.

We therefore think very carefully before removing an international destination simply because the paperwork has become more difficult.

Brexit Changed the Landscape

Whatever anybody's personal view of Brexit, there is no escaping the fact that it changed the practical process of moving goods between Great Britain and the European Union.

For businesses such as ours, sending to France, Germany, Spain or the Netherlands ceased to be much like sending a parcel to another part of the UK. Customs declarations, VAT arrangements, commodity codes, origin information and additional electronic data all became part of the process.

Government estimates suggest that around 16,400 UK businesses have stopped exporting to the EU since Brexit. More recent research amongst smaller businesses suggests that more than a third of those currently exporting to Europe are considering scaling back their EU trade or stopping altogether.

We understand why.

Small businesses do not have customs departments. There is no team of people at MrPottery whose sole job is to study international trade regulations while the rest of us get on with running the business. The same people buying stock, photographing china, answering customer enquiries and packing orders also have to make sure international parcels comply with the latest rules.

Nevertheless, we have chosen not to withdraw from Europe.

We do not necessarily agree with every political decision or every regulatory change that has made international trade more complicated. But our customers did not make those rules, and we do not believe somebody in Germany, France, Ireland or Spain should lose access to the replacement china they need because the paperwork has become inconvenient for us.

So, wherever it remains practical and legally possible, we keep shipping.

And Europe Has Changed the Rules Again

The latest major change arrived on 1 July 2026.

Previously, many goods worth €150 or less could enter the EU without customs duty, although VAT still applied. That customs duty exemption has now been removed for low value e-commerce purchases.

A temporary €3 customs duty now applies to qualifying business-to-consumer imports up to €150. Importantly, that is not necessarily €3 per parcel. It can apply to each separate tariff classification within a parcel, so an order containing several different types of item can attract more than one charge.

From November 2026, further customs data requirements are due to arrive, including Product Identifiers for goods being declared to EU customs.

This is why international shipping rules sometimes seem to change almost on the turn of a sixpence. The broad EU rule may be common, but its implementation involves different postal operators, customs systems and national arrangements.

DDU and DDP, What Do They Actually Mean?

Two abbreviations now appear regularly when discussing international shipping: DDU and DDP.

DDU means Delivered Duty Unpaid. You may also see the modern term DAP, Delivered At Place. In simple terms, the parcel is sent to the customer, but any import VAT, customs duty or local handling charges that are due are collected from the recipient before or at delivery.

DDP means Delivered Duty Paid. In that case, the sender deals with the import charges in advance. With services such as Royal Mail's Postal Delivered Duties Paid system, the relevant duties and taxes are calculated through the postal system, settled with the destination country and charged back to the sending business.

From a customer's point of view, DDP is usually the simpler experience. The parcel arrives without an unexpected demand for customs charges before it can be delivered.

From a business point of view, however, it places more responsibility on the sender and makes accurate customs information even more important.

Not Every European Country Works in Quite the Same Way

This is where things become particularly interesting.

Although EU customs legislation applies across the Union, the postal systems handling those parcels do not all operate in exactly the same way.

Germany has already become one of the clearest examples. Some international postal networks no longer accept low value parcels to Germany using DDU, meaning the duty must instead be dealt with by the sender through a DDP-style service.

Other countries and carriers have introduced their own arrangements or transitional rules. France, for example, has seen changes to the way certain low value DDU services are accepted, while Royal Mail currently continues to provide both DDU and duties-paid options for French shipments.

That slight contradiction sums up the present situation rather neatly.

There is no useful laminated card we can stick above the packing bench saying, “These are the rules for Europe.” The service available can depend upon the destination, the value of the order, the type of goods, the carrier being used and the current requirements of the postal operator receiving it.

So we check.

America Has Changed Too

Europe is not alone in making international e-commerce more complicated.

The United States removed its longstanding $800 duty-free allowance for low value commercial imports in 2025. UK goods are also currently subject to an additional 10% US tariff, alongside any other duties that may apply to particular products.

For the time being, MrPottery has chosen to absorb that additional US tariff rather than add it to the price paid by our customers.

We pay the relevant duty through our courier or postal service as part of the shipping process. Royal Mail's current International Tracked service to the United States, for example, operates on a duties-paid basis.

We cannot promise that international tariffs will remain at their present level, or that absorbing them will always be commercially possible. Governments rather inconveniently reserve the right to change these things without consulting the MrPottery packing department first.

But for now, that is the approach we have chosen to take.

Royal Mail, DPD, FedEx and DHL

There is no single postal service that is perfect for every international parcel.

Royal Mail remains extremely useful for many of our smaller overseas orders. Its international network reaches a huge number of destinations and, increasingly, its electronic customs systems allow duties and taxes to be handled before the parcel reaches the customer.

We also use DPD, FedEx and DHL where the destination, size or value of a parcel, or the particular customs arrangements involved, make one of their services a better choice.

That means two parcels leaving MrPottery on the same afternoon may take completely different journeys to their customers.

Our job is not simply to put a label on a box. It is to choose a sensible service for that particular order and destination, provide the customs information it requires, pack the china properly and then get it moving.

Can You Really Send Fragile China Halfway Around the World?

Yes.

We know it sometimes feels slightly alarming to order a delicate plate, teapot or serving dish and then watch the tracking information show it travelling thousands of miles.

Fortunately, we have been doing this for a long time.

One of the nicest pieces of feedback we receive from international customers is not simply that an order arrived safely, but how quickly it sometimes reached them. We regularly hear from customers amazed that china ordered from the UK has arrived safely on the other side of Europe, in North America or considerably further afield.

Of course, pottery and enthusiastic parcel networks are not natural companions, which is why packing matters enormously. We cannot control every conveyor belt, aircraft hold,  delivery van and driver a parcel encounters once it leaves us, but we can make sure it starts its journey properly protected.

Years of sending pre-loved china around the world have taught us a great deal about doing exactly that.

The World Is Still Our Market

International trade is undeniably harder for a small UK business than it once was.

Brexit introduced new barriers between Britain and Europe. VAT rules have become more involved. The EU is introducing further customs requirements. America has changed its import regime and introduced additional tariffs. Postal operators are continually adapting their services to accommodate the latest regulations.

There will undoubtedly be more changes.

But replacement china has never respected borders particularly well.

A British dinner service may have spent fifty years in Canada. A German tableware pattern may be sitting in a cupboard in Dorset. A missing Royal Doulton plate in Australia might eventually be replaced by one that came to us from a charity shop twenty miles away.

That is part of what makes the pre-loved market so interesting.

So while many businesses have understandably decided that international selling is no longer worth the complexity, MrPottery remains open to customers around the world.

We may occasionally mutter at a customs form. There may be some fairly unprintable remarks when another regulation changes three weeks after the last one. But we will keep adapting.

You can browse our current range of discontinued china and replacement tableware wherever in the world you happen to be.

The rulebook may keep changing. Our intention to keep serving customers around the world has not.