For those of us that ship to USA - the $800 de minimis threshold looks like it will be coming to an end globally at the end of the month. That means our customers will have to start paying duties on their order and there will probably be delays in shipments arriving (I some how doubt that customs or USPS will be set up to handle collecting all those payments). It will become more important for us to make sure that we have the correct tariff codes to make sure our customers get charged the correct rate. I’m sure more details will filter down from sources like Royal Mail.
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More losses for some then, before long we will just have UK on our shipping.
I’m still going to ship to the USA as the customer has to pay the duties and handling fee, it might affect the number of orders that I get from USA as it will add 10% (or whatever our tariff ends up at) and a handling fee (I’ve seen mention of that being $10 but cannot confirm) onto the price.
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Oh yes i will do the same Sasha and still add shipping for the US, I meant we may lose more customers because of it and before long will only have UK customers.
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How annoying 
Thanks for the update Sasha.
I decided not to sell to the USA when Trump started his tariff tantrums. I spent hours altering my listings to include the USA , then two weeks later had to undo what i had done. He’s going to land up doing a lot of harm to the world’s economy! I am just waiting for the real --it to hit the fan with a world wide recession. He’s even sacked someone today who publish some employment figures he didn’t agree with. I personally think this man is very dangerous and he definitely has an unstable personality. We don’t have windmills all over our country either! He can’t even get his facts straight before he opens his mouth. Sorry, that’s my rant over; i can’t stand the man.
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I’m with you on all of that.
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Have just been catching up in this - thanks for sharing Sasha.
Apparently Royal Mail already have a duty paid pre delivery option available, although it looks like you access it via a whole different system (just for some of EU at moment but assume they can make it available for US). I guess that could be an option for those of us who can’t afford NOT to sell to the US.
Hi Debbie
I had a request this morning to send a baby jacket to the US via Folksy.com. The new small $800 tariffs starts at the end of this month. I have agreed to sell the garment for the customer to purchase. It will probably be my very last order outside the United kingdom. Such a shame and another nail in our coffin.
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Lovely to hear you had the sale, I agree before long we won’t have any international buyers at all. I have a customer in the US she often buys my signature bears and usually 2 at a time, I imagine because she often likes a few things she waits to order multiple on account of the postage fees so I wonder whether this will be the tipping point and she won’t be able to adopt them in future. She said it’s a nightmare over there since Trump was re-elected. I also had a lady in Canada who had quite a bit to say about it all, she wasn’t happy at all.
While USA had the same President a few years ago, E*y decided to ask all European sellers to provide their ID numbers (driver’s license or passport numbers). If sellers could not or did not want to hand over to a US company their details had their shops closed.
It seems to me that some plan to ruin online selling between USA and Europe existed before. And it has been slowly unfolding with all kinds of unecessary obstacles, especially to small businesses…
I sent the order today. I charged the postage rate from Royal Mail international tracking charges from their website. I landed up being £4.65 out of pocket as my local post office said £16.65 was the correct price! After commission and materials charges i haven’t made much money from the sale! Hourly rate below £0.85p!
Regards Gail
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Aw it’s so deflating isn’t it sometimes, when I did my year end and worked out my non wage it nearly sent me packing, i would call it pocket money but doubt it is anywhere near the going rate of that.
I think the rates at the post office are higher than it quotes online, when i use to estimate the cost I use to type in post office price not royal mail, not sure if you did that but I always remember mine was always more than I thought it was going to be when I too it to the PO and realised there are different prices.
Sales seem to be less frequent than they were as well, it’s certainly getting harder for sellers.
Just been reading a few comments about it on threads. Lots of small businesses are worried. It’s so frustrating. Our little island will soon have nowhere to ship too! I was talking to a seller from another online market place who said she has clients in the USA that don’t mind £15 shipping on items that are £10 but factor in duty and I think it seems like a crazy amount.
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Currently we in the UK are at 10% tariff rate, however all sales to the US from everywhere, no matter the value will be affected rather worse than that for the next 6 months. It will be charges of a minimum of $80 up to $200 per item. After the 6 months it will be just whatever the tariff rate is for the country the item is coming from. I think most buyers will pay 10% but the minimum of $80 + is not manageable. I am ceasing sales to the US for at least 6 months starting mid August, I will review again next year. It’s a hard blow for me and many.
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As well as the hilariously ridiculous temporary 6 month flat tax (or ad valorem duty) can you imagine the total chaos that this will introduce as customs?! There’s no way that they will be able to pivot and deal with such an increase in admin - let alone the postal services who will no doubt also have masses of US customers refusing delivery so they don’t have to pay the silly tax.
There may well still be a way to make sure your US customers only pay the 10% tarriff as the importer of their own ‘goods’, which will be if we use courier services like Fed-Ex and do full customs paperwork - I can’t imagine that will be worthwhile for us or customers though.
Let’s hope someone talks sense into the Trumpster before the end of the month.
For anyone who wants to know more, here’s a decent article about it: US end of parcel tax relief threatens eBay, Etsy trade | Reuters
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I’m not risking it, it could end up costing me a fortune in returns over Christmas.
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So the USA customer will pay the tariff, and there may be a delay in the product reaching the customer due to potential customs holdups…
I appreciate that it’s not great customer service (albeit out of our hands) but isn’t it up to the customer to decide if they want to pay the extra / take the delay risk?
I’m just a bit confused as to why I’m reading so many small businesses are stopping USA exports. Am I missing something? Is it a protest move? Clarification very welcome please as I’m
not sure what to do at the moment …
(Have @Folksyadmin said anything about this?)
What is causing alarm/ concern is that there is a 6 month transition period and mention of flat rate fees at the beginning before transitioning to the % and a handling fee (no indication of which countries would get transitioned over first). This article suggests that parcels from the UK could be subject to an $80 flat fee (I believe our tariff is 10% but that may change) at the beginning.
All the articles I’ve read have spoken about DDP (delivered duty paid) where the seller collects the duty at point of purchase and then remits it so the buyer doesn’t have to pay prior to delivery. I’ve always shipped DDU (delivered duty unpaid) which is when the buyer gets a bill from the postal service so that they can pay the duty before the item is delivered. It’s currently unclear what would happen if the buyer doesn’t pay the duty (or $80 flat fee) - would the parcel get returned or destroyed.
We really need some sort of guidance from Royal Mail and/ or USPS.
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I had been thinking about leaving things as they are until I heard about the flat rate thing recently…I’m just gonna turn off shipping to USA when my shop reopens and hopefully work out what it all looks like sometime down the line.i really don’t want to be worrying about processing returns and the cost that goes with that!