What do you think is going to happen to our shipping on May 2?

[sin-n-dex]

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I didn't ship anything made in China, they were treating all the packages as if they were made in China, then they repealed the rules and put de minimis back, and at that point my packages made it across the border (without tariffs).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

[flipistics]

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@thereandback864 wrote:

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.

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I 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.

[cottagewoman]

Did you purchase the label through eBay? Just curious - their guidance to sellers over and over states that duties are the responsibility of the purchaser in their own country. If they didn't notify the buyer of this situation, I think they hold some responsibility here.

[cottagewoman]

I 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]

You're right - since there is no way to set a different price based on destination country, there's no way to add a surcharge of the value of the tariff at the item level. Adding it to a handling fee would mean adding fees based on the additional cost of the tariff which would destroy the profit margin.

[mrdutch1001]

There are already reports regarding UPS that "ALL parcels will be brokered and incur a fee regardless of value and origin."

[thereandback864]

I did purchase the label through eBay.

I don’t think that shipping fees are dutiable, so any potential surcharge would have to go there somehow. It’s not ideal.

Obviously, the best solution would be for eBay to collect duties at the time of sale.

UPS has launched a new service called UPS global checkout that calculates landed cost, including duties and fees. I’m not holding out hope that this be integrated in the near future but it does exist.

For now, UPS is claiming that CBP is not offering duty drawback (refund of duties). In the guidance about IEEPA, it does say that drawbacks are unavailable, however, for reciprocal tariffs I think they should be.

eBay customer service of course said not to worry about anything, and that they would refund any duties charges put on the account, and to refund the buyer when the goods are returned. This is all verbal, so essentially there is no way of knowing what will happen until it has actually happened or until eBay issues a statement. UPS has paid out these fees, so they will be looking to get them back. In the event of a chargeback, hopefully eBay seller protection would kick in.

[cottagewoman]

Thanks for the update - when I referred an additional fee for handling that could be used for tariffs I was referring to the eBay fees that would be extra on top of the sale price + tax + actual shipping cost.

[cottagewoman]

Now that I think about it - no way to uniquely assign a handling fee per item to US buyers only. Nevermind.

[marnotom!]

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@thereandback864 wrote:

Obviously, the best solution would be for eBay to collect duties at the time of sale.

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Traditionally, that's been the job of customs and the carrier, if they've been encharged with brokerage responsibilities, and even then the carrier technically isn't collecting the duties but advancing them and getting paid back by the importer.

As you're probably aware, there are a lot of countries or jurisdictions where eBay can collect and remit taxes due on the item for international sales, but duties/tariffs are a completely different ball of wax as my understanding is that they're part of the customs inspection process.  (I think @recped mentioned this in another thread.)

If eBay were to somehow be allowed to charge, collect, and remit duties/tariffs at Checkout, it would have to be empowered to do so by law.

[itolduandso]

You can adjust the shipping cost for the US to make it unreasoably high, like 250 dollars to ship a 1 lbs item. 

Shipping cost is not subject to tariff anyhow, unless they can proove it is unreasoably high.

[itolduandso]

I generate my listings for Ebay in Airtable so I am in control of the description and all Chinese products have a calculation of Tariffs charge right in the description. Ebay should have provided this service, I am paying 1000s of dollars yearly in fees to ebay but get very little in return. 

This is a few lines of code. 

[itolduandso]

EU and UK have enforced the VAT be collected by the platform. But that is only to a certain value I believe 150 Euro. This reduces the cost that would be otherwise paid on brokerage fees for low value items, speeds up processing packages and also resolves issues of non-payment of duties because they are pre-paid by buyer at the time of checkout. Problem solved. 

[thereandback864]

Agreed - duties and tariffs are a different challenge from taxes.

The main issue is that eBay doesn’t currently offer sellers a way to ship DDP from Canada. In the U.S. and U.K., their Global Shipping Program (now EIS) handles DDP, but it has its own limitations.

For the rest of the world, eBay operates under the assumption that shipments are DDU. That’s fine - until a buyer refuses delivery due to unexpected charges, like a 145% tariff. This triggers a return, and since U.S. tariffs were implemented under IEEPA they aren’t eligible for duty drawback; the courier will seek reimbursement from the sender. Whether eBay covers these costs when labels are purchased through its platform is unclear, but even if they do, it still results in a poor buyer experience.

eBay is a marketplace, not the merchant of record, so one potential path is enabling sellers to collect and pre-pay duties on the buyer’s behalf—rather than relying on the buyer to settle fees at delivery, especially since it’s the sender who ultimately takes the hit.

Of course, that’s easier said than done - the task of having to assign HS codes to all my listings in advance is not trivial.