Everyone's selling you the same dream. One warehouse, one platform, one catalogue, and overnight you're a cross-border operation. It sounds clean. It looks clean on the slide. The problem is that slides don't show you year two. The VAT Problem nobody warned you about TThe first wall most fashion brands hit when going cross-border into Europe is VAT registration. Not the most glamorous problem, but it tends to arrive fast and cost more than anyone budgeted for. The EU's One Stop Shop scheme, which came in mid-2021, did make things simpler. Register once, declare centrally, no need to file in every country you sell into. That part works. The catch is the moment you put stock in a fulfilment centre abroad. Say you use a third-party logistics provider in Germany to speed up delivery to Central Europe. You've just created a VAT presence in Germany. The centralised scheme no longer applies. You need a local registration, possibly a local tax representative, and local ...