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.
