Red tape

I want to buy a couple of stationery items, some card pin badges and some microperforated card for address cards. Cannot find anything like in any of the hypermarkets, stationery retail stores are as scarce as hen's teeth in our little bit of France. The obvious thing is to buy online, a quicj Google search finds quite a number of online stores. Great stuff ...

So I explored the first hit, they have exactly what I want at prices that I like, put them in the virtual shopping basket and proceed to the checkout. Easy so far. Filled in the usual required details etc and went to pay. Instead of the payment screen The details one reappeared, apparently I had missed something on there. Having checked it showed that I needed to enter a Siret number, that effectively is a business registration number which as a private individual I do not have. Tried entering a series of numbers of the appropriate length and on to payment again - still no joy.

Oh well, back to Google and another online store. Come the payment bit and again the same problem, so a few more sites were tried, each with the same result.

Now to Plan B, go to a UK site such as Staples or Office World, both of whom had the desired items. Towards the end of the transaction both stated quite clearly that items will noy be sent outside of the UK. This nothing unusual as many retailers online will not psot to Europe. Why for heavens sake? There is no additional paperwork now thanks to the EU only extra postage, no customs formalities nor anything else.

So, here am I totally frustrated and wanting to support French businesses and I cannot because of red tape. UK companies do not want my meager trade either for different reasons.


AAAARRRGGH!