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I didn't ship anything made in China, they were treating all the packages as if they were made in China, then they repealed the rules and put de minimis back, and at that point my packages made it across the border (without tariffs).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.
