7DayShop.com; 015

Just who, or rather what, are 7DayShop.com? Obviously they are a website of one sort or another, but where does the "seven day" bit in their name come from? Is it because being online, they are "open" seven days a week, or do they have some sort of special 7 day bargain sale going on all the time?

Well, determined to find out a little more about the company, I had a look online and found that they are pretty much an electronics retailer, dating back to the year 2000 and based in Guernsey . In the last 18 years or so, 7DayShop has become an established online seller of photography, digital and computer products with over a million happy customers.

A few years ago, and after an initial "back of a shop" beginning,  40 local people picked and packed more than 4,000 different products, from USB drives to camera straps, all in their immaculate 32,000sq ft building. Their last success were framed canvas prints of customers' favourite photographs uploaded via website snapmad.com and then they seem to be thriving.

I can't say much about how they are doing now... what I did notice was that their blog (also hosted on their main site here) doesn't look to have had a post since October 2017 which is never a good sign. There's still positive feedback examples from late last year which is great, and perhaps whomever used to write the blog has left or simply not had the time to write anything new. Shame as there were some good articles on there, like this one and this one.

One of the more interesting aspects to 7DayShop's operations is that they are one of a growing number of "Offshore Fulfilment" companies, or in layman's terms, a company using the law to gain a tax advantage. To quote this Guardian article;

"Offshore fulfilment is a creature of happy accident and the ruthlessness of good entrepreneurs in exploiting tax advantages. When Britain began levying VAT in 1973, the Channel Islands – a "crown dependency", which is independent from the UK and has stayed outside the EU – were allowed to pre-pay VAT because fresh flowers and cream imports were perishable and filling in customs forms would catastrophically delay their entry. 

In 1983, these arrangements were superseded by an EU directive that established low value consignment relief (LVCR). This allowed member states to avoid collecting VAT on low-value imports where administrative costs were deemed excessive when set against tax receipts they generated. Britain set the bar at the highest possible figure, £18 – all goods below this price imported from outside the EU did not attract VAT.

VAT-free imports from the Channel Islands remained a cottage industry until 1998 when three bright 28-year-olds on Jersey, high-street sportswear retailers Richard Goulding and Simon Perrée and their computer-savvy friend Peter de Bourcier, started selling DVDs to UK mainland customers via Play.com. 

Envying the success of what is now one of the biggest dotcom businesses, the big boys belatedly waded in: Tesco set up its own web operation called Tesco Jersey; Asda, HMV and others followed. In 2006, the transfer of goods from the UK to Jersey so they could be shipped back VAT-free to the mainland was described by Jersey's then economic development minister as "a complete sham" and Tesco and others were expelled from the island. 

The VAT loophole was too lucrative to give up, though: Tesco switched its CD and DVD website to Switzerland before quietly returning to the Channel Islands via an outsourcing fulfilment firm, The Hut Group. In 2008, the VAT loophole trade was worth £110m according to the Treasury; critics allege it is now far higher, with greetings card business Moonpig and computer game retailers thriving offshore."

I don't have a particular feeling either way for this... I know one can read all about how Starbucks avoids paying UK Tax, but at the end of the day, if it means cheaper goods, coffee, and services for me, then great. I personally think I already pay a huge amount of my income out by way of taxes and charges to the largely useless Government, and so if a celebrity like Jimmy Carr finds a way to avoid paying more tax, then good on him.