International mail and parcel delivery specialist UKP Worldwide (UKPW) has opened a new customs clearance hub for international parcels.
The External Temporary Storage Facility (ETSF) at Worminghall, Buckinghamshire, UK, offers a simplified in-house customs clearance service making significant savings for those customers who operate internationally, both importing and exporting, from the UK, according to UKPW.
UKPW customers benefit from having just the one point of contact for customs clearance and the entire customs process is speeded up as all the paperwork, duty payments and compliance is completed away from the UK border, avoiding the delays, disruption and additional cost caused by bottlenecks at the border, which has been made worse by the challenges of Brexit and Covid-19. In some cases, the paperwork can be completed in advance, making the delivery process even quicker.
As an HMRC accredited Authorised Economic Operator (AEO), UKPW is one of only a few delivery companies approved to offer customs clearance services. The process is straightforward: customers send a pre-alert and upload their shipping manifest to UKPW’s parcel system, Savvy. A customs record is created and the tax calculated. Goods arrive and UKPW will collect the tax from the customer and pay HMRC on their behalf. UKPW then scans the goods and validates against the manifest before releasing them to the final-mile carrier. Savvy continues to provide 24/7 tracking of the goods until they reach their final destination, providing complete visibility and transparency to the customer. UKPW retains all customs records as proof for the customer, if later requested by HMRC.
Lee Bucktrout, chief executive of UKP Worldwide, said, “It’s a very exciting time for us as our e-commerce business is growing substantially and we are investing resources into our customs clearance services to fulfil that demand. We offer our customers a simplified one-stop solution, removing the hurdles that can come from moving goods through UK customs, particularly in these uncertain times for cross-border supply chains. Our new hub in Buckinghamshire will deliver significant savings for our customers and keep their supply chain moving, and most importantly, their customers satisfied. We look forward to welcoming new business to UKPW in the weeks and months ahead.”
