What do you think is going to happen to our shipping on May 2?
Summary: La discusión gira en torno a la preocupación de los vendedores al aproximarse el 2 de mayo, cuando se eliminará el "de minimis" para productos de China/Hong Kong, lo que podría causar caos en las aduanas debido a la necesidad de verificar los orígenes de los productos. sin-n-dex expresa su incertidumbre sobre cómo impactará esto en el comercio electrónico, especialmente usando servicios de envíos fronterizos como Stallion y Chit Chats. mrdutch1001 y otros participantes mencionan que seguirán con sus operaciones normales pero con precaución, mientras que algunos planean pausar ventas para evaluar el impacto. ricarmic y fallsavenue discuten las dificultades adicionales que enfrentarán debido a las tarifas propuestas y la potencial necesidad de cambiar a otros mercados. Además, se mencionan los problemas con compradores confundidos sobre tarifas y posibles demoras en el envío principalmente por el cruce de la frontera y que algunos vendedores están tomando medidas preventivas avisando a clientes potencialmente afectados.
So de minimis on China/Hong Kong made goods goes away May 2. If history is any lesson, there's going to be bedlam at the border.
I'm wondering what the shippers like Stallion and Chit Chats are going to do, while we are allowed to continue to ship non-China goods across the border, I'm expecting chaos while they're sorting all the packages to determine what can go, and what is subject to 145% tariffs (which no longer apply to electronics from what I read in the US forum).
With 145% tariffs, no one will be using services like Stallion and Chit Chats to send their items across duties paid, it would cost the seller money to sell the item with those types of tariffs. But it won't likely stop some people from trying to sneak their China items across under the guise of them being from a different COO.
There was talk a few weeks ago about needing manufacture name and address info for the shipments. That's going to cause chaos for those of us who ship vintage goods. Declaring it as "vintage" instead of providing a manufacturer was correct according to CBP, but whether or not that's accepted under the new rules is anyone's guess.
I think I'm going to have to go offline a few days before May 2 (yet again, for the fourth time) to wait and see what happens. There's no sense in continuing to sell if they just decide to treat all shipments as if they're Chinese (like I was told they were doing when the de minimis on China items first went away, February was it?) Stallion told me all my packages were going formal entry and tariffs were going to be charged back to my account even though I didn't ship anything made in China, they were treating all the packages as if they were made in China, then they repealed the rules and put de minimis back, and at that point my packages made it across the border (without tariffs).
It's just complete chaos, and this "wait 30 days" for things to happen and having to stop selling every 30 days to make sure we can comply with the new rules is exhausting.
For those of us who've decided to just ship Canada Post, I still think there's going to be bedlam at the border, significant delays in Canada Post packages, customers getting mad and filing INRs. I don't think shipping the items from Canada and letting the tariff be the buyer's problem is necessarily going to help escape the chaos that's pending. Plus the fact I think numerous packages will not be claimed due to tariffs. If the tracking is anything like the EU packages that are refused due to tariffs then a lot of customers will be entitled to refunds. Although I knew my EU package was refused, the integrated tracking didn't show what the carrier tracking showed me, and eBay forced me to refund the customer $50 because he didn't want to pay VAT on his import. I'm expecting with US tariffs to see a lot more of that noise.
C.
itolduandso
·1 year agoI wonder if anybody tried direct message the CBP with questions. The Buffalo CBP is what Stallion uses to get packages to the US. I have hard time getting answers to some questions from Stallion or CBP contacting directly but I think will try to reach out via twitter they can be direct messaged.
valuestore
·1 year agoThe de minis is great for consumers, not so great for sellers. 'Foreign' manufacturers can walk into your market where $10 sell price is standard, they come in at $5, in some cases this is subsidized by foreign governments , you can't compete with cheating. It sends you and your family to the food bank line up.
cottagewoman
·1 year agovaluestore
·1 year agocottagewoman
·1 year agoitolduandso
·1 year agoMakes no sense what you are saying. If a product is made in the USA and I export it, it shouldn't be tariffed sme way as a Chinese product that has been subsidized.
cottagewoman
·1 year agoitolduandso
·1 year agoThat's what I meant, yes.
itolduandso
·1 year agoI got my response from CBP. I asked them if having a letter in writing from a company in the US about the origin of the item can be considered instead of having the made-in-USA on the product. The product I have is an expensive equipment but it was manufactured as custom item for special order and there is no made-in-USA marking althogh the product was made in the USA. So I asked if having a letter from the company would help.
Their response was no - it must be on the product.
But faking country of origin on the product is probably easier and I can see Chinese alraedy running their etching and laser engraving tools hot as everything worth selling money and time will just be ingraved with Made in USA.
Another question was about who decides and how decides if the tariff charged is percentage or flat 100 dollars.
The response: It's the carrier that decides how much they charge, if they charge the percentage or flat 100 dollars. What choice will the carrier make? So what difference will the lower new tariff make at 54% if the carrier still can choose to charge 100 dollar if there is less work with that.
This is clear as mud.
And by the way - why wasn't the CBP information center officer infirmed the duty assessment is now 54%. Where are they taking that 120% now?
Is this something more recent or they have older information?
The second link has whole emails directory to send questions. I don't mind sending questions directly to somebody out of the list instead to the general mailbox.
https://www.cbp.gov/trade/rulings/informed-compliance-publications/marking-country-origin-us-imports
https://www.cbp.gov/trade/centers-excellence-and-expertise-information/cee-directory
itolduandso
·1 year agoNow with tariffs lowered to 30% for the next 90 days on Chinese origin items, is USPS still going to charge the minimum $100 flat per package tariff on packages from Canada Post.
fergua3
·1 year agoUS buyers who just got nailed with 145% tariffs are going to be pretty upset that it's now down to 30%. Trump seems to be aiming to infuriate every person in the world.
Trump is putting a specific tariff on the toy company Mattel because they moved production from China to Vietnam and not from China to the USA. He is oblvious to the reality that toys made in the USA would cost about 5 times as much as those made in China or Vietnam, plus the US does not have the technology or know-how to make modern day toy quality. What a stable genius.
cottagewoman
·1 year agohttps://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/modifying-reciprocal-tariff-rates-to-reflect-discussions-with-the-peoples-republic-of-china/
itolduandso
·1 year agoLol. I never knew Trump is so eloquent in writing.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·1 year ago@fergua3
@itolduandso
It's the the Trumpian version of a limited time offer. Will expire or can be revised without warning. Void where prohibited by state, provincial and country laws. 1 per family. Photo copies will not be accepted. Taxes and handling charges may or may not be extra at checkout. If there is an error refunds are not applicable.
As an afterthought, I wonder if all eBay users chipped in and bought him a jet could we get reduced tariff rates to everywhere? Hmmmm....
itolduandso
·1 year agoYeh, buying him a golf cart maybe.
I asked ChatGPT explain how it works with the $100 minimum tariff and the 54% duty on Chinese origin goods. So is this 100 dollar optional according to the article in The Verge which ChatGPT cites as well? It looks like the importer can decide whether to pay 100 dollar or calculated tariff. It doesn't make sense to me, why would they even did offer this option. Wasn't it minimum 100 dollars?
https://www.theverge.com/news/665541/trump-reduces-tax-on-cheap-imports-from-china?utm_source=chatgpt.com
I didn't know the 200 dollar is cancelled. That's new too.
So much chaos.
itolduandso
·1 year agoIs that minimum flat minimum $100 tariff (soon $200) per item applicable to China made items coming from Canada as well? Or is it for the packages coming from China directly?
sapphyres-designer-jewellery
·1 year agoMy understanding is it's "China made items" no matter where they are shipped from.
Hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong.
C.
dinomitesales
·1 year agoI wonder how the resellers in the UK are doing. Are they concerning themselves with these matters as much as we are? I know they don't sell as much to the USA as we do, but it's still the same changes in de minimis that would be affecting them. How is this being represented on their GSP program? Is eBay collecting the tariffs up front for any American buyers?
reallynicestamps
·1 year agoIt might be useful to use Bulk Edit to put a warning to US buyers.
Many still don't realize THEY will be paying the tariff not the Chinese manufacturer or the exporting seller.
EBay gave us this boilerplate a few years ago and I have left it in my Descriptions ever since.
<br>Import duties, taxes and charges are not included in the item price or shipping charges. These charges are the buyer's responsibility. Please check with your country's customs office to determine what these additional costs will be prior to bidding/buying<br>
It may be worthwhile adding US RESIDENTS to the warning, as well as the word "tariffs".
itolduandso
·1 year agoEbay makes is PITA to edit listings. You can edit title and description, using CSV, okay, but forget if you want to edit that custom field for Country of Origin.
I had buyer yesterday insisting my listing said the item says "Country of Origin is Canada". Well, I always had it like that, because I didn't care, it wasn't important. Now this needs to change and all my listings need to update. I have the CSV ready with the C: Country of origin etc field, but Ebay doesn't accept partial edits of custom fields using CSV. The only way to update is to update all custom fields and that needs to be done by category.
This didn't need to be so complicated and time consuming. It's country of origin. That field is there. Every item has the field there, regardless of category. I emailed Ebay about that and from Turbodata I got response " Thank you for your suggestion we will consider for the future".
Heck I need it now!! Not in the future. I need to update 400 listings and this is nuts.
flipistics
·1 year agoUse the bulk editing feature. Select them all and edit the item specifics. One of the fields there is country of origin.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·1 year ago@flipistics
A major PITA for anyone with 100's or 1000's of listings. Sellers would have to pull out individually to confirm. And you may pull out and half aren't even marked. eBay is at nauseum updating item specifics. Majority are either irrelevant or unknown. But it's always worth checking....just in case.
sapphyres-designer-jewellery
·1 year agoMaybe try Sixbit. There are lots of fields you can batch edit, or edit several listings at once.
Not sure if this will help, but I have 11,000 listings and had to update 4500 of them to say they are being now shipped from Canada. Spent 8 hours doing updates (most of which was time the computer spent updating, it took me 2 minutes to batch change hundreds at once).
C.
thegrandtoywizard
·1 year agoI appreciate all the updates from Canadian sellers shipping China made goods to the US. Please keep us updated on whether or not your customers get charged duties.
I just had a US sale for $20 worth of used kids learning video games made in China. Not sure if I should send the buyer a message warning of duties and giving them the option to cancel, or just ship it out on Monday via Canada Post.
Most of the retro toys and toy parts I sell are made in China so I'm not sure what to do going forward.
mrdutch1001
·1 year agoWell it matters not whether new or used, those made in China goods are subject to tariffs, so the risk is there for all sellers of such merchandise.
sin-n-dex
OP1 year agoI actually woke up this morning worry about my stamp lots and the pages they are on (after reading the post DYK made about sleeves being made in China causing the whole Pokeman pack to be rejected).
I went and checked some pages, seems that for a while I was buying Lighthouse Vario pages and they're stamped "Made in Germany", so far so good. When the supplier of vario pages lost their stock in a hurricane and went out of business, I switched to Anchor pages which if I recall have Asian characters. I started to get pretty worried... went and found the listing where I bought them (the seller is still active selling them). Seems they are made in JAPAN, but there's no stamp on the pages to indicate where they were made.
Basically a stamp lot is something I'm making up by taking apart other people's stamp collections and building general interest collections from certain countries. I have a bind I use to fill pages and when I have enough pages to pull for a collection.
They're saying you need to have stickers to say where things are made, the stamps are all identified by where they're from by default, but the pages may or may not be marked. I'm not selling pages, I'm selling stamps, the pages just make sure they look nice and arrive well to put in your album when you get them.
See all the trouble this China thing is causing? And I'm not even selling anything from China (well, not anymore, I took those down, and if the de minimis isn't returned in place in a week or so I'm going to return them to the brick and mortar store and let them deal with it. They can get local customers and not have to deal with tariffs.
C.
itolduandso
·1 year agoI realized by reading this - packaging...
I use lots of cardboard boxes 3rd party, from retail store etc, to save on cost. Most of smaller boxes have Made in China on them. I better start blacking out that or will get unnecessary attention.
Well, foam I use is also Made in China.
You never know.
flipistics
·1 year agoAll bubble mailers are probably made in China too.
msau4301
·1 year agoAll bubble mailers are probably made in China too.
Yep, I just checked for fun, all my bubble wrap too!
Fortunately the package is no longer on the packaging when it's sent!
musicyouneed
·1 year agoNot sure if I should send the buyer a message warning of duties and giving them the option to cancel.
IMO, I would send them an email as I think that there are going to be issues with the parcel. I wouldn't be sending anything made in China or Hong Kong to the US at all.
ricarmic
·1 year agoI had a $15 sale of China stamps that I mailed out yesterday. I chose not to send any message specific to the tariffs on that parcel as an experiment to see what happens. If it had been a higher value item I probably would have sent the forewarning email.
flipistics
·1 year agoCould you let us know how long it takes to get through customs? I'm curious how bogged down they are (if at all)?
ricarmic
·1 year agoPROGRESS UPDATE:
My $15 China stamps sale mailed on May 2nd spent two days in Chicago customs, a day longer than the other items that went through, today it is out of customs and on its way to the buyer.
Don't know what happened re tariffs, will find out likely tomorrow or Monday once the buyer has the item.....
sapphyres-designer-jewellery
·1 year agoKeep us posted. I'm waiting to see what actually happens with the first package that's assessed tariffs (that isn't a UPS/FedEx type where you can for sure expect tariffs, and lots of them).
I'm currently waiting to see if my packages will make it to USPS today (with stallion).
C.
itolduandso
·1 year agoI got rejected many packages at the border because they didn't have the Country of Origin labels on them, essentially a sticker that needs to be attached to the item or to some packaging the item is in (can be a closed transparent bag etc if it's not the original box of the product). Those are non-chinese items and I mailed them already last week they got to border Saturday, all returning.
cottagewoman
·1 year agosapphyres-designer-jewellery
·1 year agoAre your items over 20 years old? From what I read on the link posted yesterday if it's over 20 years old (prior to import) then it doesn't need an affixed sticker.
Also it doesn't need a sticker if putting a sticker on will damage the item (like picture an old aluminum token, you wouldn't put a sticker on that).
I guess I'll see if my packages are rejected, they're supposed to get to the border today (if they haven't already).
C.
musicyouneed
·1 year agoI have had a very good month (April), lots of US buyers. All on my stuff has been either made in US or Canada so I will see how much of a delay there might be. I checked the CD's that have already been delivered last week and no delay. This week however, all of them are being presented to Import Customs even before May 2. That is new.
musicyouneed
·1 year agoUpdate, this was sent to the US last week of April and it looks like it was delayed 2 days, April 30 presented to customs and released May 2. This was a CD either made in US or Canada. I have quite a few sent over the past few days, I will keep you posted. This would be coming from Vancouver and they are CD's made in US or Canada and sent through ebay: Canada Post.
fergua3
·1 year agoi'm not sending any US buyers warnings about tariffs. Let it come as a nasty shock to them. They need to experience the full impact of making America great again for themselves. Besides, many Americans have become very aware, and concerned about tariffs....if not, more and more will be real soon. Wait until Christmas when the toy shelves are empty in the US.
The only way this tariff situation will get better is if lots of Americans grumble, and the only way that will happen is if they have sour experiences because of Trump's tariff garbage.
thereandback864
·1 year agoI work in the Powersports industry, and I sold a $400 motorcycle helmet to a buyer.
They received a $660 import duty bill from UPS, freaked out, and I had to explain that even though the package was shipped from Canada, the item was made in China.
They don’t want to pay the bill, so they refused the package. What will happen next I wonder ? Will UPS try and bill the duties to me if they return the package? Or will they withdraw the entry? The buyer might file a charge back. We shall see.
UPS does say that they will try and collect duties from the consignee for 41 days, and if they are unable to collect the charges will be billed to the sender. On the last page: https://assets.ups.com/adobe/assets/urn:aaid:aem:ca603540-c0ea-4ad5-b294-48061332d0c7/original/as/trade-policy-tariff-changes.pdf
eBay does say that the moneyback guarantee doesn’t apply when buyers refuse packages, but even so this will be complicated for buyers and sellers, customs is a very complicated domain, and it is difficult to speak to competent CSRs at any of the organizations involved.
mrdutch1001
·1 year agoSellers who have and continue to list/sell/ship made in China goods/merchandise to the USA are responsible for those actions and any consequences that are brought upon them by the buyers. Yes, we all know that buyers should be and need to be aware of the tariffs, but sellers also need to accept any & all risks for allowing their made in China items to be purchased by USA buyers...
thereandback864
·1 year agoif Customs refuses goods then the duties are valid and cannot be refunded.
If customer refuses shipment then Post entry cannot dispute or refund charges on refused entries. The shipper is responsible for all charges on refused entries per our service guide.
Customs will not allow duty drawbacks at moment either.
Hopefully, eBay has some sort of solution in the works.
Otherwise, one option is to raise prices so that shipments can be sent delivery duty paid. Or give up selling China origin goods to the US.
flipistics
·1 year agoI don't know why people keep saying this. The DUTY IS OVER 100%. You cannot send the items delivery duty paid without losing money unless that duty is collected at checkout, which eBay doesn't do. It doesn't matter what price you choose.
dhslk
·1 year agoOr ship via the post office.
dhslk
·1 year agoI one hundred percent disagree with this statement. A buyer has free will. If they want to buy the item, it is their choice. If they are ignorant, that is on them. I do think that, from a customer service/thoughtfulness perspective, it would be reasonable for sellers to inform their customers about the new rules around items from China, before the item ships, to give the buyer the option to back out of the sale. This is what I am doing. I am not blocking anyone. Never have.
itolduandso
·1 year agoExcept many sales cancellations on yout account may trigger an automatic red flag, not a good thing, I wouldn't want to deal with that given that there is nobody to speak with at Ebay about account issues.
marnotom!
·1 year agoThe section above the one you linked to points out that as the broker, UPS already paid duty and taxes on behalf of the importer on items shipped in early February, and as that's pretty standard operating procedure in general for carriers such as UPS, I can't see it being any different for this sale.
If the buyer doesn't pay what UPS is wanting, the charges will likely revert to you. These charges are from UPS, not CBP, as CBP has already been paid by UPS. Unless there's some mechanism for CBP to return what UPS paid, UPS is going to want that money from you. Even if CBP were to return the taxes/tariffs due because the buyer refused the item, UPS might only drop its demand for those and you might still have to pay the brokerage charges.
As far as eBay's involvement goes, it's not going to intervene in any sort of exchange or dispute you may have with UPS. It will presumably ensure that the buyer can't file a successful MBG case against you as the buyer refused the shipment, but that only covers what the buyer paid you at Checkout. What happens if the buyer goes straight to filing a chargeback is anybody's guess, and you're probably finding it difficult to find anybody knowledgable anywhere to speak to about this issue because this is completely new territory for all parties concerned. You're a guinea pig in this situation, I'm afraid.
cottagewoman
·1 year agoI would assume that if the item wasn't delivered to the consignee for whom the tariff applies to, then UPS needs to inform CBP and demand a refund of the duties portion (minus their brokerage fees and I imagine a surcharge of some sort ) once the item clears back into Canada. Otherwise this is theft.
cottagewoman
·1 year agomrdutch1001
·1 year agoThere are already reports regarding UPS that "ALL parcels will be brokered and incur a fee regardless of value and origin."
femmefan1946
·1 year agoI was very careful to mark the labels for today as COO USA (as appropriate).
Fingers crossed.
dinomitesales
·1 year agoReports are starting to come in from cross-border shippers.
A truck from DYK successfully passed through the Niagara border this afternoon. But one of their trucks was refused entry at the Montana border crossing. According to them, customs officials were opening boxes and refusing things if they had ANY reference to China on it (although they do mention this level of inspection is unique to the Montana border crossing).
From them:
“For example, one package lists this at the back: Printed in the USA. Dice and condition markers made in the USA. Card sleeves made in China. From what the Country of origin rule is this should be a made in the USA product.” (It was a sealed box of Pokémon card product).
sin-n-dex
OP1 year agoOn Stallion's website they're asking to have SKUs and products recorded (seems that only applies to China goods though, I did a test run last night to see if I could mail a package and it gave me the regular Ground Advantage and US Economy options).
I did some research to get names and addresses of some of my biggest suppliers in case things are going in this direction where I need to record all my items (there's 11,000 items, and I'm waiting for a reply from Stallion if I can have one SKU for a Canadian Token and override the price each time one such item sells).
I found out that CHINA coins are manufactured in CANADA at the Royal Canadian Mint. (There's no specification of which coins these are, just that China is on the list of RCM countries they produce for, apparently they make coins for 73 countries, so there's a 35% chance coins I have are made in Canada). There is a website called Numista with much more information which will narrow down the mint of particular coins, so it's a good resource for me to find out who made the stuff I sell.
So isn't that funny an item from the ROYAL CANADIAN MINT made in Ottawa or Winnipeg might say CHINA on it???
Anyway thanks for the update, can you post the link to where you read this? I'd like to go read their blog if they're posting this publicly online.
C.
dinomitesales
·1 year agosin-n-dex
OP1 year agoGreat, thanks! I went and took a look.
C.
femmefan1946
·1 year ago@sin-n-dex
isn't that funny an item from the ROYAL CANADIAN MINT made in Ottawa or Winnipeg might say CHINA on it???
That's the global market.
When the Government of China wants something to be trustworthy and more important, trusted, they don't make it domestically, but sub-contract to a Western /Canadian manufacturer.
The plethora of complaints about fake Chinese "Panda" coins is a case in point. And if the manufacturer is the Royal Mint of Canada, that would be a strong selling point, once the buyers /investors catch on.
Do the Chinese coins come in packaging that says Made in Canada?
sin-n-dex
OP1 year agoI'm not sure which coins are made at the mint, but I think the Pandas is likely. I don't have any Pandas for sale (actually correction, I think there's a panda in my incoming box of stuff from last week). I don't think I'll list it though if the fact it says China is going to be such a problem. My dad pointed out the US customs guys who look at packages are not the brightest and won't get that the Mint makes a bunch of stuff for other countries.
Numista will probably confirm which coins are made where (if the person putting the coin in their database knows the answer). I looked up a few that are on my Canadian store to see if they were made in Canada (apparently we make Ukrainian coins, but not the ones I have for sale).
C.
fallsavenue
·1 year agoYou seem to be making up problems that don't exist!
@recped Exactly! I was only making a simple observation that if DHL has to temporarily halt US residential service, then maybe this whole mess will be more complicated than we're thinking (hoping).