Cross-border compliance, run for you - so you don't have to become the compliance department.
EU/UK expansion and compliance emergencies: VAT & OSS, EPR across countries, GPSR, food labelling and language rules, marketplace compliance flags. Fractional, remote, senior - and tested for 12 years on my own money.
You describe the situation in writing; I reply within two working days with an honest read: what I would do, what it costs - or why you don't need me.
Selling across borders is not hard because of ads or logistics. It is hard because of everything that quietly sinks people: VAT registrations that should have happened last year, EPR schemes in five countries with five different portals, labelling language rules, GPSR, marketplace compliance flags that deactivate listings on a Tuesday. Most e-commerce brands this side of £20M cannot justify a dedicated compliance hire - so the founder becomes one, at the worst possible hourly rate.
That is the job I take off your desk.
None of what I know came from courses. I learned it by falling into the traps with my own company and my own money: listings deactivated overnight by a compliance flag, schemes I did not know existed until the demand letter arrived, registrations done in the wrong order and paid for twice. I know what non-compliance looks like from the inside - which letters come, what gets frozen, how long the way back takes and what it costs. That knowledge never makes it into the official guidance, and it is why my clients do not have to acquire it the way I did.
The specifics, since you would be right to ask: I have eaten a Spanish tax penalty, survived the mid-stream collapse of Amazon's VAT Services programme, and dug a five-country VAT backlog out of the ditch - filing Germany myself while agents handled the rest. A hired compliance manager knows the rules. I know what breaking them costs, what the letters look like, and how long the way back takes - because I walked it with my own company and my own money. And I know the quietest cost of all: growth. No business grows past £5M while its founder is buried in EU compliance - most never even clear £1M. Mine didn't. Every hour in an EPR portal is an hour nobody is growing the brand. That is the real price of doing this yourself, and the one nobody invoices you for.
Services - prices on the page, deliberately
Two things before the prices. Every price is for my work only - third-party and authority fees (registrations, agents, schemes) you pay directly to the provider; nothing passes through me. And everything is paid upfront, covered by a plain guarantee: work I do not deliver is money returned.
EU/UK Compliance & Margin Audit
One week. I go through your marketplace accounts, registrations and settlement data and give you a written map of where you actually stand: VAT/OSS status, EPR obligations by country, account health and compliance flags, and the fee and margin leaks hiding in your settlement reports. Written report plus a 60-minute readout. Per-market verdicts: fine / fix / decide.
Fixed by size, not negotiation: 1–3 marketplaces £650 · 4 or more £950. Paid upfront; work starts on payment.
Pre-Expansion Mapping
Before you commit money to a new market, know what it actually triggers. One target market, mapped end to end, so the decision is made on numbers instead of optimism. The map covers:
- Every registration and scheme the market triggers - VAT, OSS, EPR by category - and what each costs to enter and to keep.
- Labelling and language requirements for your actual product line, not generic guidance.
- A cost model: setup, recurring fees, per-unit charges - and what they do to your margin at your intended prices.
- The right sequence: what to do first, what can wait, what breaks if done in the wrong order.
- A plain go / no-go / go-later recommendation, in writing.
£950 for the first market · +£500 each additional in the same engagement. Paid upfront, under the guarantee above.
then a fixed quote 3
Fix-the-Mess
Deactivated listings, EPR demands, VAT backlogs, a registration that went sideways. The diagnostic tells you what broke and what it takes to fix - with a fixed price for the fix, in writing, before any fix work starts. Most fixes end with the same question - "can you make sure this never happens again?" - which is what the subscription below exists for.
Diagnostic £500 per issue, paid upfront - £750 if it is a true emergency (listings down, a deadline inside two weeks): you go to the front of the queue, answered as fast as capacity allows. The fix is a fixed price agreed in writing. Subscription clients: incidents on my watch are covered.
Implementation & the Running System
When a map or a diagnostic becomes "do it for me": a fixed menu, per country.
- First country, everything in - VAT & OSS coordination, EPR (packaging), GPSR and authorised-representative arrangements, marketplace configuration, the document trail - £1,450
- Countries two and three - £1,150 each
- Countries four and five - £950 each
- Country six onward - £750 each
Then the fractional-officer subscription keeps it running. Fractional means you contract the function, not a person’s hours: I run your cross-border compliance the way a compliance-trained co-founder would - autonomously, without needing to be managed, focused on the function rather than your meetings. Independent, on my own methods and tools, for a small number of clients at once. A compliance@your-domain address and direct contact with your agents and marketplaces, so the function is actually run - not reported on from outside. Two prices, all-in:
- Up to 4 cross-border markets - £1,250/month
- 5 or more - £1,750/month
- One scope rule: keep your home market in-house with your accountant - it doesn't count toward the band. But all your cross-border markets come together, to one person. I don't take on scattered single countries; the value is one person seeing the whole board.
- What it covers: declarations and reporting coordinated, agents managed, the document trail kept - and a written monthly report of everything checked and caught, so you see the watching, not just the absence of fires. Weekly while anything is being set up; immediate word when something needs you.
- Terms: monthly, paid in advance, stop any time. No annual contracts, no chasing anyone for money: no payment, no work, no hard feelings.
- Why this price: set from your profit, not your fear - what a £3-4M brand comfortably affords, and what a growing brand invests to get there, because nobody reaches £5M with the founder living in EPR portals. I am the example: my own brand stayed smaller than it should have, because for years the founder was the compliance department. This is the co-founder I would have paid for. Capacity is capped at five subscription clients; when it's full, this page will say so.
Unusually complex? I will quote - or tell you I am not the right fit.
All prices exclude third-party and authority fees, which you pay directly to the provider - they never pass through me. Not VAT-registered; no VAT charged.
No sales theatre
You may have met the other kind of consultant. The price that only appears after an hour on video. The problem that grows more complicated the longer they describe it. The "quick discovery call" that is neither quick nor discovers anything you hadn't already written in your first email.
I sat on the buyer's side of those calls for twelve years. This practice is built to be the opposite:
- Prices are on this page. If we're not in the same band, you find out in thirty seconds, not thirty minutes - and neither of us dresses up for it.
- You start in writing; I answer in writing. Within two working days, with an honest read - including "you don't need me for this" when that's the truth. The complexity in cross-border compliance is real; what you're buying is a map of it, not a tour of how frightening it is.
- No pitch follow-up sequence. If my reply is useful, you'll come back. If it isn't, an automated email on day four wasn't going to fix that.
How I work
I navigate; regulated professionals advise. I am not a tax adviser, an accountant or a lawyer, and I will not pretend to be one. My job is mapping, sequencing and coordination: making sure the right questions reach the right regulated professionals at the right time, and that nothing falls between the stools. Where formal advice or filings are needed, you engage those providers directly - I make sure they have what they need and that their answers fit your operation.
Fixed scope, written output. Every engagement starts with a one-page engagement letter: what is included, what it costs, when it lands. No open meters.
During an engagement
- A written status update on a fixed day, every week - what's done, what's next, what's blocked, what needs your decision. Dependable beats live: most compliance anxiety is uncertainty, and a reliable update kills it.
- Written by default - it's on the record, you answer when it suits you, and nothing gets lost across accents and time zones.
- Calls when they earn their place: a short kickoff if you want one, and whenever something genuinely resolves faster by talking. I'm not hard to reach - I'm just not performing availability on camera.
- Every decision lands in writing, so there is always one version of the truth.
About
I spent over a decade building and running a premium Hungarian food brand I founded, across ten Amazon marketplaces - the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, the US and Canada - plus Shopify and eBay. Every service on this page is something I first had to do for my own company, with my own money on the line: the EPR waves, the VAT and OSS registrations, the labelling and language rules, the marketplace compliance flags.
Before e-commerce: chemistry and QA in pharmaceutical manufacturing - which is where the systems-and-rigour habit comes from. Native Hungarian, full professional English: useful when your suppliers or manufacturers are in Central Europe.
Based in Belfast, working remotely across the UK and EU. The long version of the career is on LinkedIn (identity-verified profile).
Questions you'd be right to ask
Is this tax or legal advice?
No. I map, sequence and coordinate. Regulated advice stays with regulated professionals - accountants, tax advisers, lawyers - whom you engage directly. What I bring is the operator's view of how it all fits together, and the project management to make it happen.
Who is this for?
Established e-commerce brands from about £1M upward, selling into or out of the UK/EU - the range where compliance exposure is very real but a dedicated compliance hire is not justifiable. Larger, multi-market estates are quoted individually. Food and FMCG is where my depth is: labelling, language rules, food-contact packaging, the works.
Why not just have my accountant do this?
Ask them - most will decline, correctly. An accountant files tax in the country they are qualified in. Cross-border e-commerce compliance is a different animal: VAT and OSS across several countries, EPR portals in each, GPSR, labelling and language rules, marketplace compliance systems - most of it not tax at all, none of it in one profession. Your accountant stays exactly where they are; I coordinate them, the foreign agents and the schemes so the whole board is one person's job. That is the function.
Why should I trust a one-person consultancy?
Because you are not buying a firm, you are buying the specific person who will do the work - and I have run this exact gauntlet for my own brand for twelve years. References available; my history is public.
Are tax filings included? Do you cover fines?
Filings are made by regulated agents - accountants, tax agents, EPR schemes - whom you engage directly; I select, brief and manage them, and check what comes back. And nobody can honestly "cover" fines. What I sell is what prevents them: the right registrations in the right order, deadlines watched, and a document trail that holds up when a question comes. The money-back guarantee is about my work not being delivered - not about authority penalties.
How fast can you start?
Audits usually within the week. Fix-the-mess diagnostics faster if listings are down - say so in the form.
What do you need from me?
Read access where relevant (marketplace accounts, registration records), a contact who can answer questions, and honesty about what has and hasn't been done. The engagement letter lists exactly what's needed before work starts.
Planning a UK/EU expansion - or untangling one that already went sideways?
No pitch deck, no discovery-call theatre. Describe the problem in writing; I'll tell you whether I can help, what it would cost, and what I'd do first - in writing, within two working days. If a call genuinely earns its place, I'll suggest one.