A custom-made partnership
A digital and data-driven solution for imports and exports
Everyone wants quality at a pocket-friendly price
But for a High Street favourite with stores across the UK and Europe, the tax, legal and admin challenges that came with Brexit made the process more complex and costly.
The chain’s business model involves sourcing branded products from around the globe, then selling them in shops and online quickly at prices people love. From fashion to food, items are shipped between the EU, the UK and Ireland, with supplier payments, logistics and timings carefully managed to guarantee value for consumers.
When the UK left the EU, new customs rules meant the retailer had to pay tax on goods every time they crossed borders. And the impact was huge. Deloitte’s Global Trade Bureau (GTB) offered a solution that would make imports and exports plain sailing.
Post-Brexit, with shipments worth over £1 billion a year, the company’s duty bill doubled and red tape caused delays
But close collaboration, clever software and Deloitte’s expert data skills look set to save the chain millions.
Traditionally, to get shipments from A to B as fast as possible, carriers managing a company’s freight look after customs clearance, duty calculations and payment.
But the retailer’s 12,000-plus annual goods consignments required more than 40,000 customs declarations – five times the amount before Brexit. Needing specialist support, it went out to tender in June 2023 and chose Deloitte as its sole provider.
“The client has a number of logistics centres and goods for the UK come into these for processing or storage. Around 10% is then sent to Ireland,” says partner Bob Jones, who led the Deloitte pitch team.
“Before Brexit you could move items throughout the EU without any customs issues. Now shipments can incur 15% tariffs before reaching the UK market, then another 15% on the way to Ireland. And while Ireland is in the EU so shouldn’t mean further taxation, it requires proof that those items came from Europe.”
Deloitte began working with the retailer in late 2023 and in February 2024 started handling declarations and regulatory requirements across all customs channels and trade corridors. Then in July, a new combination of Deloitte and third-party tech solutions went live that accelerated savings.
Bob explains, “Our system is making sure the retailer pays the right amount of tax, which is often zero, just once and in the right place. In total this could save around £10 million from the company’s annual duty bill.”
Six months into our partnership, Deloitte GTB has been providing human, technical and technology resources critical in our negotiations and approvals held with HMRC, enabling customs duty minimisation and helping improve both customs compliance and speed of stock through borders to store. The accelerated programme means benefits are hitting our P&L this financial year, making our finance team and shareholders very happy.
Client Logistics Manager
Navigating the customs clearance conundrum
GTB is part of our Global Trade Practice, providing both compliance and advisory services.
Based in Ipswich near Felixstowe, the UK’s largest seaport, GTB was set up in 2019 to manage the five-fold increase in customs declarations expected to materialise after Brexit. Essentially it’s a data processing centre, but an extremely sophisticated one.
With the client, GTB developed a solution that takes information from the retailer, freight carriers and suppliers and builds declarations to create a complete picture of the supply chain for the authorities. By automating data flows, it determines how much tax should be paid, how often and where. It also recognises where duty reliefs and suspensions, and free trade agreements exist and can prove a product’s origins.
“As well as significantly reducing the retailer’s duty bill, it’s created a cash flow benefit by providing a duty holiday and halving the time it takes for goods to get from the UK centres to stores in Ireland. Dashboards will provide the client with insights on sourcing, trade lanes and logistics, so they can make their operations even more efficient.
“GTB is different to traditional customs brokers because by managing all UK and Irish import and export declarations, we get to see the whole supply chain and knit together efficiencies. Our data processes help the retailer to understand, for example, where their goods come from, which lines are more profitable because they don’t incur tax, and how they should set their margins.”
Green-lit by government
GTB helps the retailer in liaisons with the government tax department – another way in which it differs from traditional brokers. And because the chain is trusted, it gets Green Lane clearance at customs, which means even fewer hold-ups when products enter the UK.
“Together we’ve taken HMRC on a journey as well,” continues Bob. “We’ve been telling them exactly what we’re doing to make sure we’re complying with regulations and everything has full approval. We know what they expect from the trade and we can put that into practice for our client. The combination of new technology with deep compliance and advisory skills has been essential, but it’s the way forward as we see it.”
The scale of the work has meant our Deloitte experts have had to get to grips with the company’s activities very quickly. But it’s reaping sizeable rewards. And further down the line we’ll be exploring how we can use the tech in a new logistics centre.
“The retailer was really brave to tender all their requirements at once, but we’ve responded and worked together incredibly well,” adds Bob. “I’m proud that with very clever software and data wrangling as I call it, we’ve been able to make such an impact for our client.”
At the Deloitte Global Trade Bureau we receive data, we wrangle it and we’re really good at it. That leaves our clients free to concentrate on their customers, which is what they’re really good at.
Bob Jones, Partner, Deloitte
