Information in this section covers questions about B2B, B2C, C2C shipping; identifying if your recipient is a business and its type, and why carriers ask for different information.
For shipments from Great Britain (GB) to Northern Ireland (NI), you will need to confirm that you are providing the product-level information required by each of the carriers you use. If you are not providing this information, you may need to update your integration to include that. See Metapack's guidance on Product-Level Information .
If you are unable to provide all the information required, you should work closely with your carriers to agree upon an approach that may include updates to your shipping logic to prevent shipments to NI, or increased information requirements to treat the parcel as an international shipment.
For Customers that ship B2B, additional data will be required: UKIMS number, EORI number, and a declaration of the risk that the goods may be onward shipped into the EU.
For some carriers, Customers will also be required to indicate which shipments are B2B– using the new movementIndicator being introduced to the Metapack API (DM & MPM).
If you are unsure whether your recipient is a business or how to identify if a movement will be classed as B2B, please liaise with your carrier on the appropriate next steps to take.
Assuming shippers are meeting all carrier data requirements for B2C, Metapack understands there are currently no additional data requirements in readiness for the Windsor Framework.
Metapack considers it good practice for the new movementIndicator attribute being introduced to the Metapack API (DM & MPM) to be correctly populated for all shipments.
The UK Government changes place additional requirements upon carriers to process the information they receive and refine that with additional information. For example, a shipper may provide a product description and the carrier may then translate this to a Harmonised Code/Tariff. In some cases, carriers have elected to place this data requirement upon the shipper rather than determine this information themselves.
Metapack is working with more than 50 carriers to understand the changes that each requires. At the time of issue, Metapack still awaits revised specifications from some carriers affected by the new regulations. Several carriers are applying additional mandatory data requirements – e.g. movementIndicator.
While Metapack always aims to offer carrier-agnostic services to our customers, this is not always possible as Metapack must adhere to the carriers’ published integration specifications.