Requirements before shipment
Two things, both set up once and reused on every parcel after: an EORI number registered to your business, and a written note of the commodity code and your VAT position, taken from GOV.UK rather than from a forum thread.
This is setup, not a recurring task. Do it once and it carries across every shipment that follows. Meeting the border for the first time when the courier's invoice arrives is what turns a working margin into a loss on stock you have already listed.
- An EORI number — if you import as a business, this is the reference that identifies you on UK customs paperwork. Apply through GOV.UK and check the current process and turnaround there.
- Your VAT position — ask your accountant what your registration status means for import VAT before you build it into a selling price.
- The commodity code — trading cards are declared under a code that drives the duty treatment. Look it up once in the GOV.UK trade tariff and keep it with your supplier notes.
- Who is billed on arrival — agree with the sender, in writing, whether the courier invoices you for charges or they are handled another way.
- One consistent business name and address — the order, the courier label and your own records should all match.
UK import charges
Four charges from three different parties, and only the first one appears on the seller's invoice.
The sequence matters as much as the total. The goods and the carriage are known before payment; the border charges arrive once the cards are already moving. That gap is where a first import goes wrong — the resale price gets set against the invoice, and the rest of the stack shows up afterwards against stock that is already listed.
- The goods — the invoice value. Akina quotes in JPY, tax included.
- International carriage — quoted separately for your destination, never folded into the card price.
- Import VAT and any customs duty — the government's charge on the import. Take the current rates, reliefs and thresholds from GOV.UK, and re-check them rather than reusing a figure someone posted last year.
- Carrier handling — ask FedEx what they charge for making the customs entry. That is the carrier's own fee, and it arrives on its own invoice.
Per-card landed cost
Measure one shipment end to end, then carry the result forward as a ratio instead of guessing again on every order.
Keep one note per lane. A 50-card bundle and a stack of sealed boxes do not carry carriage or clearance the same way, so averaging them into a single comfortable number hides which one is actually paying. The general shape of this arithmetic is in the landed cost guide; the UK-specific part is the two documents from the first section.
- Record the JPY invoice and the shipping quote at the moment you order.
- Keep every arrival document — the courier's invoice and whatever HMRC paperwork follows it. That is your evidence, and your accountant's.
- Add the four lines into one figure in GBP, at the rate you actually paid.
- Divide by the number of cards or boxes in the parcel for a per-unit cost you can price against.
- Express the total as a multiple of the JPY invoice. That multiple is what you apply to the next quote before you accept it.
Duplicate-heavy lots
Because the charge follows the declared value of the whole parcel, and the cards that will never sell are inside it.
A cheap lot looks cheap per card until you split it into stock and ballast. Carriage and import charges follow the whole parcel, so repeated commons cross the border alongside the cards your customers came for. Then they sit on the shelf, which is the second charge: capital that cannot be spent on the next order.
Velocity Bundles are built from the list you send, every card verified in hand, and photographed before payment. That sequence exists so the decision about what crosses the border stays yours, made against the actual cards.
- Ask for the list before you pay — Pokémon, era, rarity, and the budget you are working to.
- Ask for photos of the actual cards in hand, not a photo of a similar lot.
- Count the repeats in those photos, then redo the per-card maths on what is left.
- Check a sample against the references you already price from — Cardmarket, TCGplayer, PriceCharting — before the parcel is booked.
- Start with the smallest lane — A tested supply line is worth more than a cheap one.
First UK order
Small, documented, and priced before it ships.
Do the setup this week: apply for the EORI in your business name, and write down the commodity code and your VAT position from GOV.UK. Then run one small lot — the published Starter bundle is 50 cards at ¥50,000 — keep all four bills, and work out your multiple. Once you know that number, send your list and your budget by DM and price the next order before it leaves Japan.
- Send the list by Facebook Messenger — Pokémon, era, rarity, budget.
- Stock is sourced in the Japanese market and verified in hand; photos of the actual cards come before payment.
- Pay in JPY, tax included, by Wise or PayPal — Check what recourse each method gives you before you use it.
- Shipping is quoted separately for your destination; carrier availability and dispatch timing are confirmed with each quote.
- Import VAT, duty and clearance sit on your side of the border — which is exactly what the EORI and the commodity code are for.
- If you sell on a weekly live show, book the lane so a customs entry is not sitting between the parcel and your show night.
Official references
Checked on 20 August 2026. Rules and service terms can change; verify the current source again on the order date.
CHECK BEFORE ORDERING
Confirm the current EORI and import requirements, then record one shipment's full cost from invoice to shelf.
SORTING BY WHAT A STORE CAN ACTUALLY SELL