Tariffs and Customs value: I am confused with Stallion DDU/DDP for international shipments
Summary: itolduandso expresses confusion and dissatisfaction with Stallion's handling of tariffs and customs values for international shipments. They note discrepancies between how customs values are calculated when importing from eBay versus Etsy, with Stallion including quoted shipping costs for eBay but not for Etsy. They also raise issues with how Stallion's support explained double tariffs for a shipment to Japan using UPS Worldwide Saver. Other participants, including john_koenig99 and flipistics, share the confusion and discuss the possibility of miscommunication from Stallion's support. recped and itolduandso elaborate on differences between Stallion and Chitchats, another service, regarding tariffs calculation and insurance coverage. itolduandso confirms with both services that the declared value should only reflect the item price, not shipping charges, and inquires about the practices of Zonos in tariff calculations, to which dinomitesales responds that Zonos excludes shipping fees in their calculations.
I got of the phone with Stallion and it's either I have no clue about how shipping works in this day and age or their support person wasn't informed.
When I import an item from Ebay, the customs value (showing on the page where are HS Code, COO and customs description fields) show the EBay item price + Ebay quoted shipping. And this is how it should be.
When I import from Etsy on the other hand, the customs value is only showing the Ebay item price. (The quoted shipping is not included).
I asked Stallion why is it if the US tariff is calculating tariffs on the buyer paid price + buyer paid shipping cost and also the EU VAT is calculated on the buyer paid price + quoted shipping.
The answer was because the value is already calculated so it can show different on the Stallion form. Doesn't make sense, it should match.
So there is some kind of issue or error in Stallion. Import from etsy should include quoted shipping in customs value but it doesn't. I don't have sales outside of EU on Etsy so I can't say, but EU sales imported to Stallion do not include shipping cost into the customs value (quoted shipping is however included in calculation of the insurance value in Stallion, so that part works fine).
But that wasn't really my iritation.
The problem came when the support person started to explain the UPS World Saver International shipping has double tariffs/customs charged for another item I sold to Japan, it's a Chinese printed book.
The value of the book is about 20 US dollars and the buyer in Japan paid over 95 dollars shipping cost in Ebay, so total value 115 USD.
So According to Stallion, if I ship an item by UPS Word Saver, the buyer actually pays US tariffs (30%, it's a book printed in China) and then the buyer in Japan will pay the duties on the price of the item paid on Ebay + actual shipping cost paid to Stallion + (here comes the suprise) the tariffs paid to the US.
So the Stallion support person tried to tell me that the buyer is not only paying the tariffs twice (or it's actually me paying the 1st time) but then the buyer will pay the Japanese VAT on the item price + shipping cost + US tariffs paid to US government.
I said it doesn't make sense. I didn't know UPS means US tariffs.
I may have misred it, or possibly I am totally misinformed. I thought if it says DDP then it's DDP, if it is DDU, it is DDU. If it doesn't say anything, I thought it's DDU. This is shipment to Japan. Neither Post NL or UPS Wordwide Saver says it's DDU or DDP. According to the Stallion support person, I should know that Post NL to Japan is DDU and UPS Worldwide Saver is DDP. But how am I supposed to know that.
Then I ask, so why doesn't the Tariffs paid to the US government show there in the total as a line item. All I see there is the cost for UPS Worldwide Saver.
Let's assume the shipping cost for this book is 98 dollars. That's in line with shipping cost i compared with Shippo or other sites.
Stallion Support person was explaining me that actual shipping cost paid to UPS is much less, it's about 60 dollars and I am actually paying 30 dollars or so tariffs to the US government, even though this is a shipment going to Japan.
So I said, I have a hard time to believe this, but okay, maybe I have no clue, but why isn't Stallion saying it's DDP or showing there is tariffs paid to US government.
I assume if that is the case, it's done to hide this on purpose because neither me or Japanese buyer can't get back the tariffs paid to US government, at least not right now, but, as we know the tariffs question is in US courts.
If this is overturned, maybe maybe there would be class action sewing the US government because the US government shouldn't be collecting and not refunding tariffs for items that are transiting US to another country really. But Okay, in the present situation I think this is a ideal situation and the reality is far from ideal.
What is the scoup on these Stallion itnernational shipments.
Could I shipped by Canada Post , yes but it was much more expensive, it was like 200 CAD to ship the book, nuts. And I checked other sites and couriers and it wasn't cheaper than Stallion. So if I ship direct by UPS worldwide, the cost is almost same as shipping by Stallion UPS World Saver, which supposedly according to the Stallion support person includes 30% US tariffs....
Makes little sense to me.
Or am I missing something here. Confused.
itolduandso
OP10 months agoSo I confirmed with both Stallion Express and Chitchats this:
Whether this is general rule applied across any shipping company, I don't know.
Obviously this assumes the HONESTY with regard to item price being public price to any customer (whether US or non-US) and shipping charge reflecting the actual shipping cost.
Whether I end up shipping here the cheapest option and save money is completely my decision so I think as long as I don't do foolish schemes and manipulate the price with the goal to reduce tariffs, I believe I am okay.
I would also be interested to know what Zonos does in EBay.
Anybody uses Zonos?
Does Zonos include shipping fee (sold to the buyer) in their tariffs calculation?
dinomitesales
·10 months agoNo. Value of the item only.
itolduandso
OP10 months agoIf you take a look at ChitChats, how they are doing it - this is exactly it. You import sale, the tariff get calculated only on the item price. If you look at Stallion Express on the other hand, both item price and shipping you charged your buyer will be included in the tariffs calculation. The difference can be an issue for heavy or bulky items. Besides the tariffs calculation, the shipping amount also impacts the insurance cost. Since Chitchats does not include the amount into the total, the shipping fee paid by your buyer is NOT insured. Stallion on the other hand, includes shipping in insurance calculation. Of course, you can't really separate the amount insured from the amount used for tariffs calculation, it is going to be same. Chitchats and Stallion use different methodolody when it comes to shipping fee, with Stallion perhaps not doing it the right away, in any case, this is something worth to take into considereation when shipping with them.
flipistics
·11 months ago@itolduandso That doesn't make any sense. The only way I can see it is if UPS is first importing the items to the USA and then forwards it overseas. Maybe that's happening, but it still seems weird. It's probably just a mis-informed worker, but it would be interesting to get some clarification on that.
How large and heavy WAS this book?
itolduandso
OP11 months agoIt used to be when I called Stallion the connection was clear and you actually knew you are talking to somebody from Stallion. Now it seems to me they outsource it. Chitchats call is into the local office directly and they answer questions properly.
The book is about 3 kg.
recped
·11 months agoI only read a portion of your post.....
Tariffs/Duty - Applies to the value of the ITEM only
VAT (or GST/HST) Applies to the total, Item+Shipping
This is the worldwide standard.
I use Stallion but I do not use their import from eBay function (yes it means some copy and paste but my volume is modest so it's not an issue).
itolduandso
OP11 months agoSo that means I could in theory sell the item for 1 dollar and charge 20 dollar shipping. Then the tariff would be calculated on 1 dollar only.
I don't think this is what is going to be happening.
itolduandso
OP10 months agoTariffs/Duty - Apparently doesn't seem to be correct.
Tariffs / Duty - Dutable is Value of the item PLUS shipping quoted & paid by the buyer. Deductable from this is the shipping to the US point of entry (impossible to get itemized on ebay shipments, that means shipping portion to the US point of entry can't be deducted, however, if it was import of merchandise to US for later sale to US buyers, then I can deduct the intenrational portion of freight from the Dutable total amount.
And that is where comes the confusion and why is Chitchats doing things differently from Stallion Express.
They shouldn't be different but I guess this is still pretty much chaotic on what is going on and it is possible the values don't get checked on the border yet, the CBP probably only checking today whether tariffs have been paid or not.
I have sent items via CHitchats where the duties were only calculated on the Item value but the quoted shipping was not included even if the quoted shipping was 2x the amount of the item value. So I was either lucky all the time or they just didn't check the amounts, they just checked whether the tariffs were paid.
The reason I think Chitchats is only importing the Item value is because they falsely assume the seller is quoting shipping charge to the buyer that is same as the actual shipping paid to CHitchats. But even then, I can't deduct the total Chitchats shipping from the dutable amount.
john_koenig99
·11 months agoThat makes two of us. No ofense, but I am confused by your post.