In order to ensure the Artisans Co-operative complies with International tax regulations such as VAT, we will be temporarily pausing the ability to make sales to countries outside of the United States and Canada on our marketplace. While this change is unfortunate, we are forced to make this pause to protect the co-op from legal issues down the line, and we are doing what we can to rectify this change as quickly as possible.
What does this mean for sellers?
The good news is that currently less than 3% of sales on our marketplace will be affected. This change also does not affect which countries an artisan can sell from, so if you are located outside of the US and Canada, you can still become or remain a member of the co-op. However, you will be unable to make any sales to countries outside of the US and Canada for the time being.
We are actively working to put together an International Team who will be responsible for helping us to comply with the necessary tax requirements in order for us to re-enable more countries.
Their work will include:
- Researching the tax regulations for various countries and different types of products
- Who needs to collect them
- Which government agencies the co-op will need to register and remit with
We also find ourselves constrained by the limitations of the software we use, so we welcome any of our members who would like to join our Tech Team to help us find a solution. To join our teams, you can reach us on our Contact Us page!
We will update as we make further changes and solutions.