Eight Hundred Quid for a Stamp | EroSpain, Brexit Paperwork, and Why 900 Miles Cost More Than 3,500

A bonus mini-pod from the road back from EroSpain.

We went to Vegas in April. Three and a half thousand miles across the Atlantic. Customs paperwork was a web form. Some clicking, some typing, done. Then we went to Spain for EroSpain Barcelona. Nine hundred miles across one short hop of Europe. Customs paperwork cost nearly eight hundred quid in stamps, an ATA carnet via the chamber of commerce, four stamps each way, and a building site we had to cross to get to work. The doorstep cost more than the ocean.

This is the EroSpain episode of record. Caz and I sit down together for the mini-pod treatment — about thirteen minutes, two-handed, no script — and we walk you through what it actually takes to ship a trade show stand into the EU since Brexit. The carnet. The chamber of commerce. The four stamps. Frankie the Tankie versus the budget Fiat. Spanish drivers who treat the car horn like a percussion instrument. A 787 with a tail cam and crew sales versus an A320neo with a packet of pretzels and no wifi. Three days of paella. A rooftop pool we never got near because Brexit didn't get us that one, the wind did. And the Spanish, who frankly speak better English than I do.

It's a working podcast, not a holiday slideshow. If you ship product internationally, if you've watched post-Brexit trade shipping turn from a clipboard into a forensic accountancy exercise, or if you just like the gap between what a trip costs on paper and what it actually costs in admin, this one's for you.

If you're enjoying the show, hit the follow button wherever you're listening. And if you've got a moment, a rating or a quick review genuinely helps other people find us.

Mentioned in this episode: EroSpain Barcelona, ATA carnet, post-Brexit trade shipping, Altitude Intimates Las Vegas, Frankie the Tankie.

"I Make Sex Toys" is the personal podcast of Wayne Allen, founder and Managing Director of E-Stim Systems, the UK manufacturer of electrostimulation products. Made in Britain since 2004. Find us at e-stim.co.uk and at imakesextoys.me.

"I Make Sex Toys" is the personal podcast of Wayne Allen, the Director of E-Stim Systems. We have been creating ElectroStimulation Technology since 2004, Find out what really happens behind the doors of a specialist sex toy company.

Please Note the content of these podcasts are not designed to be Explicit or Erotic but we may discuss adult topics and therefore these podcasts are not suitable for children or those of a nervous disposition. You have been warned.

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Transcript

Three thousand five hundred miles versus nine hundred - Miles dont matter

Wayne 0:00

So we went to Vegas 3,500 miles. Customs paperwork was a web form. Then we went to Spain, 900 miles. Customs paperwork cost 800 quid. And we had to cross the building site to get to the show. Welcome to a mini pod. So that was the opener. So let me explain all this. We've recently done two shows, one in Las Vegas, The Altitude Show, and one in Sunny Barcelona, which was Eurospain or Eurospain. I forget how to actually pronounce it correctly. Anyway, shipping our kit, our stand out to America was through DHL, and basically it was a couple of online forms, a wodge of cash, DHL man turned up, took the crates, shipped them all out there. We did add some tracking on there, and then they landed on the stand. The hotel had been set up to actually receive them. So when we turned up on the day, there the crates were on the stand, and we went and unpacked them. End of the show, we jumped into Frankie the Tanky, drove to a nearest DHL pickup point, dropped them off, little bit of faffing there with a tiny, tiny bit of paperwork, which is basically a signature, and then they were shipped back to us. In fact, I think they came back in the UK before we did.

Eight hundred quid for a stamp

Wayne 1:16

Spain, a carne. Now, a carne is a big customs document that has to be signed by the Chamber of Commerce, and then every single possible customs person you can think of. So poor old Kay had to go down to Heathrow to pick the carne up, have it signed and stamped there, together with an entire list of every single thing in the crate, and that includes the scissors, the pens, everything has to be written down on this carne. Then we turn up at Heathrow, she has to disappear off into customs through that lovely red channel, which is always entertaining when you're leaving the country, but she has to get Heathrow to stamp leaving the country. We get to Spain again. We have to get Spanish customs to stamp it. Then once we get to the show, because we actually took the crates ourselves, we do the show, pack everything up, drive back to the airport, go back into customs, and again, guess what? Yes, we have to have everything stamped again. Then we get back to Heathrow, we think we're at the end. No, guess what? Yeah, more stamps. And then, just to top it all, Kay then has to take the paperwork back to the Chamber of Commerce to finalise off everything. And for the privilege of all those stamps. 800 pounds! Yes, 800 pounds. So if anyone tells you that Brexit has improved things and it's now the same as the rest of the world, the answer is they're talking out of their posterior. Because we can ship stuff to the US quicker, faster, and cheaper than we can shifting a few crates to an event in Spain. And woe betide us, if we ever consider taking anything out of those crates, because the guarantee the day we do that is the day that the customs guy goes, Okay, what's in the crate? And we're screwed. In fact, we got screwed last year, because last year we missed one stamp. Yep, last year we didn't do the stamp leaving Spain. That cost us a £250 fine. So thank you, Brexit. Great,

The stock we can't actually sell

Wayne 3:12

isn't it? Kaz is just giggling over there in the corner. Yeah, we've got Kaz here in this little mini pod, because she's the one who has to pay all the bills. And yeah, £800, that is a bit OTT.

Caz 3:22

Uh just a little bit. Actually, I think it's more than just a little bit. That's almost the equivalent of our flight.

Wayne 3:29

Is it? Oh, you mean the flight to Barcelona? Not the flight to Las Vegas.

Caz 3:32

No, not the flight to Las Vegas, to Barcelona. And it's also the extra Fafin because obviously the crates have got to get to the airport, they've got to get back from the airport. So if ever we were to decide we wanted to stay on and have a bit of a holiday afterwards, we can't, because we've got to get the crates back from the airport.

Wayne 3:47

Exactly. But she's still trying to be sneaky and she's planning a holiday for next year, but we don't tell anyone about that. No, no, no, no, no comments about that one. The other thing is, and people are surprised at this, we're not allowed to take stock. We can only take stuff out for quote temporary export. So we can't actually take a stand and sell things from the stand, purely and simply because we would then have to deal with import duty, uh local sales tax for the US and VAT in Spain. So yeah, we we can't do shows and take kit that we could actually sell, which would be great because we could then justify the cost of the show a little bit more. And in fact, Vegas, we had at least two or three people come up to us and saying, Are you going to sell the stand at the end of the show? And the answer is nope, sorry, everything's got to come back. So that was the first thing. This is actually supposed to be a little mini podcast comparing uh doing a show in the States and doing a show in Europe. Most people would think the European shows were a lot easier, but as I've already demonstrated with paperwork, the US is probably a little bit easier. What other differences were

Frankie the Tankie and the Building Site

Wayne 4:49

there? Well, Vegas, we had Frankie the Tanky, a black Jeep Wagoneer, which was the biggest car on the strip. Actually, it wasn't, it was the same size as every other car on the strip. But for us Brits, big cars are biggy-ish. Get to the States, a big car is the size of a tank, hence Frankie the Tanky. In Barcelona, we had the Fiat equivalent, the budget version.

Caz 5:10

It just about fitted.

Wayne 5:11

It just about fitted to everything, but it was a bit tinny and quite frankly, Fiat, you need to buck your ideas up if you want something equivalent. Although it was half the price.

Caz 5:20

I called it Frankie's poor Spanish cousin.

Wayne 5:22

But it was Italian.

Caz 5:24

Okay, I Frankie's poor Italian cousin then.

Wayne 5:27

Okay, getting to the event. Well, getting to the event wasn't too bad at either ones, but Vegas probably had the edge because everything was on under one roof. We had what they call a conference hotel, although in Vegas, a conference hotel actually is a conference casino. So you have the hotel, casino, shows, restaurants, bars, everything inside. In Barcelona, we had the hotel on one side and the venue at the other. And in the middle was a massive roundabout, which is actually a building site. They're doing some fountain y work, and they've been doing it for every single year that we have been going. The problem with the big roundabouts is their roundabouts, they have lots of traffic, and Spanish drivers love using the horn as a weapon. Just have to get used to it. Vegas is built to keep you indoors and spending. Barcelona made you across a building site to get to work. Interesting contrast that. And no, none of us actually went to the casino. Well, actually, I think Ian did.

Caz 6:18

Yeah, I think Ian decided to come play in the casino.

Wayne 6:21

If you're interested in what went on, then listen to the uh the Vegas podcast. There's some quite interesting insights there. Next, language.

The Spanish speak better English than I do

Wayne 6:29

We're in Spain. What do we do about the language? Because my Spanish is absolutely not non-existent. Uh Kaz can just about order a paella. And yeah, we had quite a few paellas. I think that's because she couldn't order anything else.

Caz 6:41

I can order paela in two beers, there you go.

Wayne 6:43

Exactly. But the good news is the Spanish speak better than English than I do. And in fact, I actually had more trouble in Vegas with the Southern Drawl because I couldn't understand what they were saying sometimes. Great guys and girls, lovely people, but I really had problems with the accent. Next up, getting there. Well, Vegas, 787, 11 hours. Food was decent, in-flight entertainment was decent. Kaz even ended up selling to the crew.

Caz 7:09

And why not? They wanted to know what we were doing, where we were going, so I told them it's oh what is it? How'd it work? I like Virgin, they like they like our product, had they?

Wayne 7:19

We didn't really have an opportunity to sell anything on the way to Barcelona, British Airways, snack service, A320 Neo, plane was okay. And no Wi-Fi. Well, it was Wi-Fi messaging, and that was about it, which I don't think anyone managed to get to work. But it was two hours, so I could survive. Whilst we mentioned paella, yeah, food. Strangely enough, Barcelona food was was not bad, but it was generally paella, paella and paella, and I think that was possibly because Kaz really likes paella.

Caz 7:49

It was paella or pasta or pasta or paella.

Wayne 7:52

Uh yeah. I mean Vegas food is it's Vegas and it's America. I mean, the first problem I've always had is portion control in the States just doesn't exist because the portions are the size of the plate, and the plate is the size of it's probably like their vehicles. That's why they need to all need a Jeep Wagon here because their portion control is out the window. But yeah, food in Vegas, a lot more variety. We probably could have found paella if we'd gone looking for it, but the food in

787 with crew sales, A320neo with pretzels

Wayne 8:18

Vegas was pretty good. Parcelan food, I mean the paella, I'm not a massive lover of paella, especially when you've got little things with legs and things sticking out of the pan, but I can cope with them just about. I mainly give them to Kaz, and she eats those bits or peels them for me. I'd actually score the food probably similar, they're just different.

Caz 8:36

I actually prefer the food in Vegas over Spain. I know I like paella, but I actually found in Vegas there was just that tiny bit more variety. You had the Cafe Americana where you could get chicken strips, pasta, pizza.

Wayne 8:49

But all you ever did was eat chicken strips.

Caz 8:51

That's because that's what I found it.

Wayne 8:52

But every day you had chicken strips.

Caz 8:54

I will point out we did have that nice steak in Vegas.

Wayne 8:57

Yeah, that cost me more than the Frankie the Tanky did.

Caz 8:59

Yeah, but it was nice.

Wayne 9:00

Okay, so Kaz likes the Vegas food slightly better than the Barcelona food, but she still managed to only eat chicken strips. Whilst on the structures flying, yeah, Vegas 11-hour flight, and that's the little bit of a kicker because we have jet lag, which is one of the reasons we always tend to get there a couple of days before. It allows us to acclimatize and get our body clocks in sync with the local times. In fact, I don't find jet lag going to America that bad. It tends to be for me coming back. Anyway, what's the town like? So Vegas busier, hotter, though Spain wasn't too bad because I think Spain was about 25 degrees and about to have a heat wave just as we left. Other things, oh the pool. Oh yes, Vegas had a pool, and we used it. Spain had a pool on the roof, bit windy, and we never actually got up there. I'm not sure if anyone was actually using it because it

Three days of paella

Wayne 9:50

was so windy. So, all in all, big differences between doing shows in the US and doing shows in Europe, and we've had a little bit of experience of doing shows in the US. We've done a few shows in Europe, we've done shows in Hanover, Amsterdam, Berlin, Barcelona. Do I prefer America? Yeah, I think I do. I still quite like doing Barcelona. I mean, it's Barcelona, it's sunny and anyway. So, yeah, that's the a brief little podcast wrap-up podcast about the differences between doing shows in the States and doing shows in Europe. I was trying to avoid just doing a rehash of Vegas because that just sounds like come and look at our slideshows from our latest holiday. And doing shows overseas is not really a holiday. You actually spend more time actually working than you do not working, and you've got all the overheads of the stress of getting stuff out there, setting up, do the show, come back, etc. etc. And it costs an arm and a leg. It is not cheap. And when you actually quietly tell people how much a stand costs, they sit there and go, Really? Because in the UK we've done shows like the BBB, LFF, where I don't know if it's probably gone up now, but you were paying like £50 for a table. Now we pay an awful lot more.

Caz 11:07

Fi £50 that I'd get us one table leg at a show now.

Wayne 11:11

That's the roundup for what's the difference between doing a show in the US and doing a show in Europe. Or, as the original title was, £800 for a stamp. Yeah, we paid £800 for a stamp. If you like what we're doing, please consider subscribing to the channel or the podcast. We publish generally every second Tuesday of the month. Although this one's going to be out of cycle because it's a little mini teasy podcast, and it was something I just wanted to do. That's what it's like. It's all about I make sex toys because guess what? That's what we do. I'm Wayne, I make sex toys, and with me today was Kaz. Bye! Who also makes sex toys because she's my partner. And yes, everyone, she created the bubble.

Caz 11:50

Yeah.

Wayne 11:51

Yeah. Thanks for listening. Be safe and have fun. Bye.