The introduction of a regulatory and customs border affected all main players in the excess stock industry. So how did Rowan overcome the incumbent issues to provide hassle-free UK-EU and EU-UK trade?
Following the referendum vote in 2016 to leave the EU many businesses who traded internationally were affected, with extra costs and increased admin being major stumbling blocks, particularly for smaller companies. One study by Aston University Business School calculated that between 2021 and 2023 UK goods exports to the EU were down 27% and imported goods were 32% lower than where they would have been had Brexit not happened.
But with frictionless EU/UK commerce a thing of the past Rowan International has not only survived the seismic change but managed to thrive and grow. How did they manage it?
Rob Shaw, Head of Logistics at Rowan International stepped into his role in October 2020 when the company, who had worked with a borderless Europe for almost 40 years, and immediately worked on building a new trading strategy. "We were used to there being no difference between us selling to, for example, a store in Barcelona and one in Barnsley," says Rob today. "If we wanted to move toiletries from the UK to Spain we would only have to fill out a CMR which may or may not be inspected by the port authorities, nothing more."
The eventual announcement of the Free trade agreement, signed on 30 December 2020, to go live the very next day, detailed customs requirements for all trade between the UK and any EU member state. The level of bureaucracy involved became evident to Rob: "For every sale that goes in or out of the EU, we need to generate a commercial invoice showing the correct and relevant commodity code, all details of the importer and exporter, country of origin, net and gross weight and value too. We made it our job to gather all that information and not leave it to our sellers to do this themselves. We then send this to our customs agent to process the entries and also depending on where is Europe we are going we may also have to supply a transit document for each load."
It costs Rowan an estimated six figure sum a year to bear the brunt of the costs of all the customs processes and paperwork. Rob worked with Gaston Schul, a customs broker in The Netherlands, to advise on customs processes and tariffs and it took months of organisation.
The biggest stumbling block, however, was the realisation that to export from the EU Rowan needed to be a European business, registered and established in the EU. "For eight months we weren't able to do that which was a huge issue for us, clearly and so we established a greater presence in Europe itself with a warehouse in the Netherlands which opened in October 2020 to give us solid foothold in the EU, working with GFM & Warehousing as a 3PL provider. This allows us to trade in Europe unaffected by Brexit. It's been a huge boon for us."
Rowan saw YOY growth of 24% in 2023-2024 period, a success story that shows how important seamless delivery is to Rowan. Sarah Guest, Rowan International's Managing Director, comments: "At Rowan we're problem-solvers for both our suppliers and customers. We always make things seamless for our sellers and customers and that had to remain the same after the Brexit."
How does Rob look back on the work he's done in his time at Rowan? "We've achieved so much to make trading smooth for our sellers and customers. When I started here we didn't really know what was required of us or even whether we'd still be able to trade with the EU. It was a steep learning curve!"
