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With immediate effect, Galerie filmposter.net will no longer be able to ship orders to other EU countries.
Since August 12, 2026 the new EU Packaging Regulation is in force. For smaller businesses, this means having to pay a hefty ransom to be allowed to ship goods to other EU countries.
The biggest problem is that the obligations and costs are largely handled on a country-by-country basis.
I’m already paying an annual fee in Germany for the packaging material I distribute. So today I called the company that handles this matter for me and asked what it would cost to ship to other EU countries. For example, if I wanted to ship to Austria from now on, I would have to pay an annual fee of €274 for an ‘authorised representative’ in Austria, plus a minimum of €150 for the packaging itself, a total cost of €424. This would give me the right to ship up to 1,500 kilos of packing material to Austria every year. Average weight of my packing material is about 0.4 kilos per order, so this deal would allow me to ship 3,750 packages to Austria in a single year. For the record, this month I had exactly two orders from Austria.
And that is just one of the 26 other EU member states.
As we all know, if you pay a blackmailer once, you can hold your breath until he comes back for more.
What probably pisses me off most is that the system places a particularly heavy administrative and financial burden on small businesses selling across borders. Large companies with established operations in multiple countries are obviously in a completely different position when it comes to absorbing these costs.
Honest to God, I’m not a conspiracy nut, but once again this has all the stink of Big Business lobbying about it.
And it’s not only small businesses like mine that will lose money. It will also affect consumers in the smaller EU countries. Who in their right mind would pay hundreds of Euros for the right to ship one or two orders to Slovenia, Malta or Lithuania?
For customers in these countries, this effectively undermines one of the great advantages of the European Union: the ability to buy specialised products from small businesses elsewhere in Europe.
No more vintage or antique goods. No more specialty products from small manufacturers. More and more, people will be left buying from the big players simply because small businesses can no longer afford to sell across borders.
The whole issue is due to be reviewed by the EU Commission in October, and there is hope that a de minimis rule or other simplifications for small businesses may eventually be introduced.
For the time being, however, the rules are in effect. Anyone who simply ignores the obligations and continues shipping across the EU risks enforcement action and potentially substantial penalties.
The Postercowboy has never given in to blackmailers in his life and does not have the slightest intention of starting now.
So, with immediate effect, Galerie filmposter.net will no longer ship to other EU countries.
If you want to discuss possible solutions to this mess, feel free to drop me a note.
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Here’s the future of many small businesses if this EU regulation stays in effect:
