eBay

sin-n-dex · ‎04-12-2025

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I didn't ship anything made in China, they were treating all the packages as if they were made in China, then they repealed the rules and put de minimis back, and at that point my packages made it across the border (without tariffs).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

mrdutch1001 · ‎04-12-2025

None of the previous situations have stopped me and I shall not be deterred by anything forthcoming... Nothing I list/sell is made outside of Canada or USA(aside of the occasional pattern booklet printed in a European country),and I do not ship to any other countries aside of Canada and USA, Nothing I list/sell has a value over $50, so any applicable tariffs would be minimal> Aside of the fact that many potential USA buyers are avoiding purchases from Canada just as many potential Candian buyers are avoiding purchasing from the USA, I shall continue to let the buyers make their own choices.I shall continue to carry on as before and I refuse to be intimidated by all this nonsense,just because some jerk in the USA wants to be a puppeteer whilst that mindless, illogical, uneducated braindead head, only knows how to lie,cheat, extort and bully countries, manufactures,businesses, and the lives of peoples around the world. We shall stand strong, and carry on!

ricarmic · ‎04-12-2025

I've become very tired of all the possible things to worry about these days, but I'm wired to have to have contingency plans, so to drop my worry time, my plan is at this point:

I will continue to ship via Canada Post (even "China" stamps, although usually they're old stuff, although I think I may forewarn buyers that they'll get dinged for the tarrif and give them the chance to cancel)

Everything to the USA will be shipped tracked.

I will make the wording stronger in my "your item is on its way" message I send to all customers to emphasize that there are very likely going to be extra and longer delays.

I will accept the risk/cost of INR's, refusals, extra questions, follow ups etc until they become significant.

If INRs etc become significant, I will have to time away my store (because I have 2kish items on each of .COM and .CA) and ponder.

If the pondering arrives at the decision that not being able to sell to folks in the US is going to be long term, I will engage the "disaster plan" which moves all my .COM stuff "elsewhere" and I'll reopen the store on .CA only to Canadians and limited international until the USA stuff resolves itself when I would re-enable selling to the USA from .CA, I probably would not list on .COM ever in the future. (Note that in my "semi retirement direction, I'm going to be on "time away" from June till middle of September - so the disaster plan would not be engaged until September at the earliest.

I'll tweak the master plan here likely a wee bit, I did whilst I was writing this up, but I'm trying not to spend too much time worrying about it. I'm fortunate that in "semi retirement" I don't rely on this for a full time income anymore and I very much feel for those who do.

sin-n-dex · ‎04-12-2025

@mrdutch1001 wrote:
None of the previous situations have stopped me and I shall not be deterred by anything forthcoming... Nothing I list/sell is made outside of Canada or USA(aside of the occasional pattern booklet printed in a European country),and I do not ship to any other countries aside of Canada and USA, Nothing I list/sell has a value over $50, so any applicable tariffs would be minimal> Aside of the fact that many potential USA buyers are avoiding purchases from Canada just as many potential Candian buyers are avoiding purchasing from the USA, I shall continue to let the buyers make their own choices.I shall continue to carry on as before and I refuse to be intimidated by all this nonsense,just because some jerk in the USA wants to be a puppeteer whilst that mindless, illogical, uneducated braindead head, only knows how to lie,cheat, extort and bully countries, manufactures,businesses, and the lives of peoples around the world. We shall stand strong, and carry on!

I have a store on eBay Canada that I'm going to use Canada Post to ship if Stallion isn't working at the moment. So I guess I'll find out first hand what's happening when I ship a few packages (but on the eBay Canada there's very few packages to ship, so not a huge problem... my US account has around 10 packages a day, so lots and lots of mad customers if there are shipping delays).

I guess what I'm musing about is what kind of chaos as going to happen as soon as de minimis is removed from China shipments. I don't think the rest of our shipments will go unscathed, there's going to be issues... delays, tariffs being improperly assessed, mad customers, and probably some things we can't do (I'm sure Stallion and Chit Chats are going to have issues when this happens on May 2).

C.

sin-n-dex · ‎04-12-2025

@ricarmic wrote:
I've become very tired of all the possible things to worry about these days, but I'm wired to have to have contingency plans, so to drop my worry time, my plan is at this point:

I will continue to ship via Canada Post (even "China" stamps, although usually they're old stuff, although I think I may forewarn buyers that they'll get dinged for the tarrif and give them the chance to cancel)
Everything to the USA will be shipped tracked.
I will make the wording stronger in my "your item is on its way" message I send to all customers to emphasize that there are very likely going to be extra and longer delays.

I will accept the risk/cost of INR's, refusals, extra questions, follow ups etc until they become significant.

If INRs etc become significant, I will have to time away my store (because I have 2kish items on each of .COM and .CA) and ponder.

If the pondering arrives at the decision that not being able to sell to folks in the US is going to be long term, I will engage the "disaster plan" which moves all my .COM stuff "elsewhere" and I'll reopen the store on .CA only to Canadians and limited international until the USA stuff resolves itself when I would re-enable selling to the USA from .CA, I probably would not list on .COM ever in the future. (Note that in my "semi retirement direction, I'm going to be on "time away" from June till middle of September - so the disaster plan would not be engaged until September at the earliest.

I'll tweak the master plan here likely a wee bit, I did whilst I was writing this up, but I'm trying not to spend too much time worrying about it. I'm fortunate that in "semi retirement" I don't rely on this for a full time income anymore and I very much feel for those who do.

Here it's significant revenue and covers expenses I can't otherwise afford, so it really is messing with my livelihood to be causing these problems with the tariffs.

Sounds like you have some good what if plans and you're waiting to see how it plays out. I took my week of vacation from May 5 to May 9 so if something happens and changes need to be made (like moving dot com items to dot ca and selling only to non-USA buyers) I have time away from work to implement that. My China and Hong Kong stuff is going to be on the dot ca account and it's kind of too bad if there are tariffs... the daily changes that are occuring are very hard to keep up with, and I too have grown tired of all of this.

C.

flipistics · ‎04-12-2025

@sin-n-dex wrote:

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.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too. I'll likely turn off all sales to the USA for a week or two until we get a sense of what's going on. I just wish eBay Canada would fix the problem of Canadian buyers typing in .com instead of .ca as it causes a big drop in Canadian sales as well due to visibility.

fergua3 · ‎04-13-2025

Is deminimus literally going to zero or is it just being reduced drastically. I've read conflicting reports (big surprise). If there is still some sort of deminimus exemption on Chinese made goods then at least lower priced items could still be shipped to the US.

I can just imagine how US citizens are going to react to the Chinese tariffs in a few weeks/ months. When their childrens' favoutite toys double in price, the clothes they want double in price etc. 80% of the goods US citizens buy are made in China. Is Trump expecting all that manufacturing to move to the US....lol. Even if it did it wouldn''t be any cheaper. US workers would expect 20 bucks an hour, not the dollar a day Chinese workers make.

I belong to a toy collecting forum and etailers have already come on there describing the problems they are immediatly facing, with most of the items they are selling doubling in price practically over night. Buyers are cancelling pre-orders in huge numbers and that is just the tip of the iceberg of what is going to be happening. Even large well established etailers will go bankrupt in a matter of months.

sin-n-dex · ‎04-13-2025

@flipistics wrote:
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too. I'll likely turn off all sales to the USA for a week or two until we get a sense of what's going on. I just wish eBay Canada would fix the problem of Canadian buyers typing in .com instead of .ca as it causes a big drop in Canadian sales as well due to visibility.

I set time away to start on April 29 (to enable me to get items to stallion on April 30 and they cross the border May 1 before the tariffs). I set time away to last for a week and turn it off once I know everything will be OK for a while.

I wasn't going to go on time away because my solution was to just remove Hong Kong and China items from the store, but if there's chaos at the border and problems getting packages across with Stallion because CBP is having to inspect everything to see if it comes from China, then my packages will get caught up in that and I'm not sure how understanding customers would be.

If I changed my item location to Canada I could keep shipping and tell people "it comes from Canada, nothing I can do about customs delays" but I'm not ready to make that change because it's going to hurt my US sales which are pretty significant. People in the US do searches for USA only items, and mine appear in that search right now, once I change the location to Canada lots of people won't see my listings.

C.

sin-n-dex · ‎04-13-2025

@fergua3 wrote:
Is deminimus literally going to zero or is it just being reduced drastically. I've read conflicting reports (big surprise). If there is still some sort of deminimus exemption on Chinese made goods then at least lower priced items could still be shipped to the US.

I can just imagine how US citizens are going to react to the Chinese tariffs in a few weeks/ months. When their childrens' favoutite toys double in price, the clothes they want double in price etc. 80% of the goods US citizens buy are made in China. Is Trump expecting all that manufacturing to move to the US....lol. Even if it did it wouldn''t be any cheaper. US workers would expect 20 bucks an hour, not the dollar a day Chinese workers make.

I belong to a toy collecting forum and etailers have already come on there describing the problems they are immediatly facing, with most of the items they are selling doubling in price practically over night. Buyers are cancelling pre-orders in huge numbers and that is just the tip of the iceberg of what is going to be happening. Even large well established etailers will go bankrupt in a matter of months.

I'm trying to pay attention to what's happening but if there's one thing I know from the current administration it's that you don't know what they're going to do until they do it, and they have a tendency to repeatedly change their minds on things.

The de minimis is supposed to go to zero on May 2, but I'm not sure that it will. I think we have to wait. I wouldn't be surprised if they do something for May 2 and change it two days later because it's not working out (like having millions of packages to process and not enough staff to process all the incoming shipments).

C.

cottagewoman · ‎04-13-2025

I feel that the end of de minimis is an existential threat and most likely the end of the trans-border service providers given the real world volumes of shipments to the US vs domestic and all other aggregate international destinations. I have a feeling the TOC will be updated soon for all players to include clauses that anyone caught breaking CDP regulations will be booted, and if their goods cause the service to incur fines or penalties the shipper will be on the hook for those costs. Most likely there will be a slow down/stoppage for the 1st week or 2 as they see what will actually happen, if rules will change, etc.

Regarding Canada Post,one of the differences for May 2 vs February is that specific language is in place regarding shipments via the International Postal Network (read Canada Post) for Chinese CoO goods - 30$ minimum fee or whatever the tariff rate is if over 30$. Going up to 50$ in June. If buyers aren't aware of these fees the amount of refused packages will skyrocket. The big question here is will eBay put in place a system to collect these fees at checkout, effectively making the shipment DDP, or will they leave things as-is and leave us all hanging high and dry? I'm afraid that at the onset it'll be the 2nd case, especially as the rules to date have changed days later whenever changes have been put in place.

Unlike the EU and UK, we have no eIS type system where a 3rd party handles all the complexities of tariffs, duties, etc. Going forward it is sorely needed for CA sellers. eBay Canada can't deal with it, but again companies like Stallion or ChitChats could manage this type of implementation and sellers could ship to a hub (or various hubs).

fergua3 · ‎04-13-2025

Another thing that will be interesting is the fact that, right now, if a buyer refuses to accept a package they have no buyer protection; at least not from Ebay. Will Ebay change that once US buyers start getting nailed with $30 charges on inexpensive packages (i read that it was $25 not $30 but whatever) and 145% tariffs on more expensive packages or will the 'buyer is responsible for all import duties' clause still be in effect?

However, knowing the Trump regime, the rules will change a dozen times or more between now and then.

I don't see the US winning this trade war with China. China exports $2 trillion worldwide each year, $400 billion of that to the US (20%). If they lose that market it will hurt but it's survivable. The US exports $100 billion to China each year....if the US loses that it's not a big deal. BUT as i said earlier 80% of the non food/non luxary items US buyers purchase are made in China. Having the prices of all those goods double will crush everyone but the wealthy. How long can the Trump dictatorship survive under those conditions.....remember there are more guns in the US than there are people.

sin-n-dex · ‎04-13-2025

@cottagewoman wrote:
I feel that the end of de minimis is an existential threat and most likely the end of the trans-border service providers given the real world volumes of shipments to the US vs domestic and all other aggregate international destinations. I have a feeling the TOC will be updated soon for all players to include clauses that anyone caught breaking CDP regulations will be booted, and if their goods cause the service to incur fines or penalties the shipper will be on the hook for those costs. Most likely there will be a slow down/stoppage for the 1st week or 2 as they see what will actually happen, if rules will change, etc.

Regarding Canada Post,one of the differences for May 2 vs February is that specific language is in place regarding shipments via the International Postal Network (read Canada Post) for Chinese CoO goods - 30$ minimum fee or whatever the tariff rate is if over 30$. Going up to 50$ in June. If buyers aren't aware of these fees the amount of refused packages will skyrocket. The big question here is will eBay put in place a system to collect these fees at checkout, effectively making the shipment DDP, or will they leave things as-is and leave us all hanging high and dry? I'm afraid that at the onset it'll be the 2nd case, especially as the rules to date have changed days later whenever changes have been put in place.

Unlike the EU and UK, we have no eIS type system where a 3rd party handles all the complexities of tariffs, duties, etc. Going forward it is sorely needed for CA sellers. eBay Canada can't deal with it, but again companies like Stallion or ChitChats could manage this type of implementation and sellers could ship to a hub (or various hubs).

I'm expecting there to be some chaos if this de minimis removal sticks for more than a few days... if it's just greatly reduced, that's a different thing, then maybe it won't be quite as bad.

The problem is they're making rules for China shipments that don't apply to other shipments but then treating all shipments as though they may be from China. They won't have to be collecting tariffs on all of these shipments but they will be checking them all out to see if they qualify for de minimis.

Basically I'm expecting chaos. I don't think by not shipping goods from China (or even switching to Canada Post) will get me off the hook from enduring such chaos. This is kind of what we expect with rules changing every day.

C.

sin-n-dex · ‎04-13-2025

@fergua3 wrote:
Another thing that will be interesting is the fact that, right now, if a buyer refuses to accept a package they have no buyer protection; at least not from Ebay. Will Ebay change that once US buyers start getting nailed with $30 charges on inexpensive packages (i read that it was $25 not $30 but whatever) and 145% tariffs on more expensive packages or will the 'buyer is responsible for all import duties' clause still be in effect?

However, knowing the Trump regime, the rules will change a dozen times or more between now and then.

I don't see the US winning this trade war with China. China exports $2 trillion worldwide each year, $400 billion of that to the US (20%). If they lose that market it will hurt but it's survivable. The US exports $100 billion to China each year....if the US loses that it's not a big deal. BUT as i said earlier 80% of the non food/non luxary items US buyers purchase are made in China. Having the prices of all those goods double will crush everyone but the wealthy. How long can the Trump dictatorship survive under those conditions.....remember there are more guns in the US than there are people.

I had a Belgium buyer refuse a package because there was VAT. I checked on ParcelsApp and saw the proof. The proof did not transfer to eBay's integrating tracking system, the buyer filed an INR and I lost because I couldn't prove they refused the package (and eBay doesn't go to third party sites to look at tracking info).

There are lots of small businesses that will be hurt by these tariffs, and they don't necessarily have to be dealing in China origin goods. I think anyone who is importing is going to have delays getting their items, and lots of scrutiny to see if the items might be from China. I figure it will be chaos and that's the part that's concerning me (not whether or not my items qualify for de minimis or if I can stop using the cross border couriers and be using Canada Post instead to try to get around this scrutiny).

C.