I would love to know which carrier(s) FBT is planning to use for the UK, and whether there is a “collection” option.
There is a clear hierarchy (in terms of customer perception)
Not generally used (for B2C commerce): FedEx, UPS
Top tier B2C:
- DPD (who also have offered some interesting nominated date/time options, up front or in flight)
In the middle
- Royal Mail/Parcelforce (good local collection options, but the quality depends a lot on your local postie)
- DX (nominated date/time in flight I think, but kind-of an also-ran in terms of volume)
- DHL “ground” (although this one is much less common in B2C)
Potentially brand damaging (but both have widespread collection options)
- Evri (fka Hermes UK, part of the European Otto group). Think “Evri parcel damaged”
- Yodel/CollectPlus
The cheap options are of course Evri, Yodel. eBay UK’s in house labelling capability usually defaults to Evri (with Royal Mail as the second choice especially for certain sizes/weights that can travel in letter post).
I also wonder how much information FBT will share with “revenue” (HMRC), especially as viral product could take the influencer over the mandatory VAT registration threshold (annualised). Influencer could of course choose to register for VAT at any point (to allow offsetting of VAT on inputs against VAT charged, and allow buyers to do the same if the product is used for a business purpose), VAT now requires monthly filing online so it is an admin overhead. Ditto US IRS for UK traders (1099’s & W8BENs–it’s a thing even for UK citizens if at any point the corporate structure has an US arm for the IRS to strongarm into disclosures).