Would love to have another European distributor. It's hard to part with $250 US on bases to get them shipped free, and then get another £100+ of customs charges when they enter the UK.
lauhing jack said they might import some stuff this year by ordering a whole shippment continer full of stuff from the US
That would be so awesome. I think it is a huge opportunity for whoever decides to distribute Warsenal's products, as they are IMO the best by a long stretch when it comes to Infinity terrain and accessories.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news on this subject but here’s the mail I got from them in late February, regarding Aristea walls and scenery: ‘Hi Michael, we’re sorry that we have to tell you that it isn’t possible for us to provide Warsenal products anymore, as our customs-service won’t let these products into the country anymore due to a EU Regulation, so CE Signs and french, german, spanish language informations have to be provided on the products and Warsenal Products don’t fullfill these requirements. Until this is fixed we’re not able to order their stuff. And we don’t have products from Custommeeple in stock and are currently not able to order them, as we don’t have any supplier for these. For Aristeia we will launch Bases, Obstacles and a full MDF Board in the next two weeks (bases on friday, the rest end of next week). Best regards Till from Laughing Jack‘ :(
I am pretty glad those regulations are in place, to prevent cancerous products to come in from foreign countries. But it is a shame, that getting those certificates is really cumbersome.
Yes, I suppose it's great to have regulations in place that nearly only giant corporations are realistically able to maintain, as well as spending millions of taxpayer money to produce a several thousand pages long reports on the limits of how much a cucumber is allowed to curve (no that's not a joke) or the 150 million euros spent every single month just to move office, from Belgium to France, along with their 22.000 lobbyist, who have no perceiveable interest in making anything easy for any business owners, other than corporations, while passing laws affecting other countries, despite the fact that they should only ever have been a trade union but have now morphed to a giant overreaching entity, no one is able to hold accountable and no one has ever elected. But I guess it's all nice be a useful idiot for the neo-liberal machine, as long as one is able to make broad general and ill-informed statements like 'At least dey dun no cancur!' but I I digress.
I am not going to try to contradict your very simplified view on EU Regulations. I really think, if you were informed enough about it, you would also appreciate most of the benefits the EU and its Regulations have brought to us. I am not saying it is perfect, I say it has its benefits.
Do products must carry those languages for all EU? Only if sold to countries using them? Any four languages (assuming EN is kept)? What is the exact regulation? Can't importer relabel to comply?
When you move the goods inside the EU market the importer can re-label in the language of his country, but when they come from outsite the EU is probably that customs block the goods if the labelling is not according to their country (if they come to Spain and the labelling is not in Spanish, you will have a problem). In other way, CE mark is not hard to get, I guess that all depends on demand and competition, maybe they think that the cost isn't worth it.
You both are probably right in some way. IIRC that shop also had issues when starting their own products production, with delays to get the workshop running. From other German experiences, they are a bit stuck up in rules and checks (except engine design and lung tests...). If a company imports something and relabels before selling to customers to comply with local laws, I don't see where the problem lies. Imagine, they could even also test and verify the things they get are not crap... I knew of UK company that imported machinery and made sure it was all worthy and not crappy China "roll the dice". No offense intended to Germans, but Germany fame is showing to be more fame than facts as time passes. *shrug*