Gents,
Before you all get too enthusiastic about buying from my German shop let me please explain a few things:
1. My webshop cannot be tied in with my stores software, that being an MS/DOS one written in the 1980s(!), hence items may show as "available" when in fact they are sold out. Andover Norton is in the modern world in this respect, so what shows as "stock" actually is.
2. This worked fine up to December 2020 because I had Norton and Triumph parts coming in on a weekly basis so if something wasn't in stock it meant but a short delay in despatching that order.
With parcels now being held up in German customs for up to over 3 weeks, my first Andover Norton shipment with 6 boxes sent out on the 8th January has still not been cleared by customs(!), my previous system has hit a brick wall. I cannot now guarantee the goods will leave the same day or at worst within a working week. At the moment I can't guarantee anything! Read the (German) text I put up on the homepage about Brexit.
There are more considerations why those not living in German-speaking countries should continue to buy from Andover Norton. You must know I am but a one-man-band in my German shop, looking after trade and end customers as well as being involved in organizing the spares offerings of Andover Norton. I have enough to do as is, with just Germany, Austria and Switzerland to look after, thank you!
The reason why we put so much effort in the webshop of Andover Norton and why we also shifted my international trading in Triumph parts to Andover last year was my work overload. The intention was to get the international customers professionally and effectively served by our team in Andover. In Andover we have a team of over a dozen people with two professional buyers and enough packers plus the latest logistics software to organize the stores so they don't normally run out of items (suppliers permitting!) and to get the parcels out the door within 24 hours.
An example: On Wednesday I spent most of the day on the phone traying to reach customs. It was like "Groundhog Day", I ended up in an ansaphone system where every time after the three previous steps you were to at last be passed on to an operator but instead re-started at the beginning.
So, please, Piero and others, Brexit is what it is. It throws trading with England back into the medieval times of carnets, customs and delays, not to mention unnecessary costs. Reminds me of the dark days when I started in business. Thank all the enthusiastic Brexiteers for it. I can't change it, and I suffer more than you probably do from a half-baked deal in the 13th hour that customs and trade were landed with with virtually no help by the political "leaders".
One big English supplier I had to virtually ORDER to send my order off yesterday. They hadn't dared for three weeks because of the report of stuff coming back or being stuck in customs and simply did not know what to do! What this self-inflicted chaos will do to British exports is everybody's guess.
All we can hope for is that, with a bit of time, customs can deal faster and more efficiently with the situation and the inevitable delays will get shorter. We will, however, most probably never get back to modern times in the EU trading with Great Britain. The days of three working days from despatch to delivery I was used to are definitely over. As are the times when my stores contained 98% of the listed goods.
Joe Seifert
www.nortonmotors.de (who came up with andover-norton.de?)