Rakuten Global for jackets?

HPA Rep said:

You got lucky, my friend. Duty is mandated by law to be applied to EVERY item entering the USA unless that specific item is duty-free. The amount of duty is set in the harmonized U. S. tariff codes; the materials an item is made from, the item type, and where it was manufactured all factor into the amount charged. And even items that may have erroneously not been assed duty are subject to an annual process applied to EVERY cleared item, whereby an audit is implemented (by computer, but a manual one can follow) and a subsequent, corrected billing could take place.

The most costly item I have ever run across would be leather-welted footwear from Japan, which has a 45% duty, whereas it would be about 6% if made in China. Textiles from Japan, such as a wool coat, are dutiable @ 19%, plus a per-kilo flat rate based on the item's raw weight. Depending on who is actually clearing the item upon entry, there will be some processing fee to be paid, as well as another from U. S. Customs; some of the more costly fees come from shippers such as Fed Ex, DHL, etc.

It is my guess that under the new U. S. administration that is clearly directing significant effort to protect U. S. interests, scrutiny by U. S. Customs could reach levels higher than at any time in the past.

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You're right! I really did luck out. At the point that I sought the BR transport coat, you were long sold out and the other piece wasn't something that HPA carried, on top of that it was another piece that had been on the market for a good while with very few still available for sale. So, buying from Japan was my only option and no customs fees were a pleasant surprise. In saying that, I also, recently, made two purchases from Mash Co. in Japan without incurring customs fees. I may have just been quite lucky, again! Ha!

I agree that the sometimes free ride is likely to end very soon. Those purchases mentioned above were the only times I've ordered from Japan. Frankly, I very rarely order, directly, from over seas.

- Ian

Why do you sometimes get a fee and other times not?

Like if i bought a freewheelers hh jacket or brass boots would those get a fee by the cbp?

EmergencyIan said:

You're right! I really did luck out. At the point that I sought the BR transport coat, you were long sold out and the other piece wasn't something that HPA carried, on top of that it was another piece that had been on the market for a good while with very few still available for sale. So, buying from Japan was my only option and no customs fees were a pleasant surprise. In saying that, I also, recently, made two purchases from Mash Co. in Japan without incurring customs fees. I may have just been quite lucky, again! Ha!

I agree that the sometimes free ride is likely to end very soon. Those purchases mentioned above were the only times I've ordered from Japan. Frankly, I very rarely order, directly, from over seas.

- Ian

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It is sometimes random, pal, but they never miss when you are an obvious business entity. I've had many conversations on the subject of the randomness with management at U. S. Customs, and the recent conversations indicate that the trickle down from the top could alter the landscape. It has been a case of staffing in the past, both being understaffed and staffed by those who either don't care or who seek bigger fish to help justify their jobs (understandable but not acceptable, so says management).

Time will tell on this, but we who pay all of the time as businesses, I am told, have been making an impact in letters to management, whereby a re-doubled effort could be forthcoming to level the playing field, thus protecting U. S. businesses, which is what the job description is for them.

Americanaaa Mark said:

Why do you sometimes get a fee and other times not?

Like if i bought a freewheelers hh jacket or brass boots would those get a fee by the cbp?

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Luck of the draw - EVERY import is subject to duty unless duty-free, and what you cited are not duty-free items. Some inspectors target larger entities because, should these entities be undercharged or get caught playing games, the recovered fees help justify the jobs of inspectors - basically, they feel it's smarter to target a business because more revenue could be brought in for the labor invested vs. targeting every single individual purchaser.

I know some really good inspectors at U. S. Customs who really do their jobs well, who are versed in what things cost from various countries and who are on a mission to properly charge and also snag those who endeavor to skirt the laws. It is becoming more apparent to U. S. Customs as to just how much revenue is being lost in the "targeting" efforts of some inspectors who focus almost exclusively on bigger fish.

I will say that deliberate efforts to skirt the law are not something inspectors take lightly. Inspectors recognize the potential for more than just duty being extracted in these instances and know, depending on the items and circumstances involved, that fines, storage fees, return fees, destruction fees, and even jail time could be involved. If, for example, someone imports, say, a repro item from Japan that uses a trademark-protected zipper here in the USA, that item is not eligible for import. If the shipment is just one item and not a storefront purchase of multiple items, the buyer would be typically given a chance to have the merchandise returned to the sender at the buyer's expense, and for days in the storage at Customs, fees could well apply, but if multiple items are involved or if the buyer doesn't want to return the item, the other remedy is for Customs to destroy the merchandise and, in turn, invoice the buyer for payment for this destruction.

I find when talking to many in many industries that import goods to the USA, that there is an overall naive oblivion among individual buyers about the seriousness of what is at stake when importing, and this is even true among small-business owners, many, many of whom fail to perform their research on the correct tariff codes and attendant duties and charges that will apply to their purchases. Who would have thought that leather-welted footwear from Japan was chargeable @ 45% duty???

HPA Rep said:

Luck of the draw - EVERY import is subject to duty unless duty-free, and what you cited are not duty-free items. Some inspectors target larger entities because, should these entities be undercharged or get caught playing games, the recovered fees help justify the jobs of inspectors - basically, they feel it's smarter to target a business because more revenue could be brought in for the labor invested vs. targeting every single individual purchaser.

I know some really good inspectors at U. S. Customs who really do their jobs well, who are versed in what things cost from various countries and who are on a mission to properly charge and also snag those who endeavor to skirt the laws. It is becoming more apparent to U. S. Customs as to just how much revenue is being lost in the "targeting" efforts of some inspectors who focus almost exclusively on bigger fish.

I will say that deliberate efforts to skirt the law are not something inspectors take lightly. Inspectors recognize the potential for more than just duty being extracted in these instances and know, depending on the items and circumstances involved, that fines, storage fees, return fees, destruction fees, and even jail time could be involved. If, for example, someone imports, say, a repro item from Japan that uses a trademark-protected zipper here in the USA, that item is not eligible for import. If the shipment is just one item and not a storefront purchase of multiple items, the buyer would be typically given a chance to have the merchandise returned to the sender at the buyer's expense, and for days in the storage at Customs, fees could well apply, but if multiple items are involved or if the buyer doesn't want to return the item, the other remedy is for Customs to destroy the merchandise and, in turn, invoice the buyer for payment for this destruction.

I find when talking to many in many industries that import goods to the USA, that there is an overall naive oblivion among individual buyers about the seriousness of what is at stake when importing, and this is even true among small-business owners, many, many of whom fail to perform their research on the correct tariff codes and attendant duties and charges that will apply to their purchases. Who would have thought that leather-welted footwear from Japan was chargeable @ 45% duty???

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Great post. And I've always wondered how they assign that percentage you mentioned...

HPA Rep said:

Luck of the draw - EVERY import is subject to duty unless duty-free, and what you cited are not duty-free items. Some inspectors target larger entities because, should these entities be undercharged or get caught playing games, the recovered fees help justify the jobs of inspectors - basically, they feel it's smarter to target a business because more revenue could be brought in for the labor invested vs. targeting every single individual purchaser.

I know some really good inspectors at U. S. Customs who really do their jobs well, who are versed in what things cost from various countries and who are on a mission to properly charge and also snag those who endeavor to skirt the laws. It is becoming more apparent to U. S. Customs as to just how much revenue is being lost in the "targeting" efforts of some inspectors who focus almost exclusively on bigger fish.

I will say that deliberate efforts to skirt the law are not something inspectors take lightly. Inspectors recognize the potential for more than just duty being extracted in these instances and know, depending on the items and circumstances involved, that fines, storage fees, return fees, destruction fees, and even jail time could be involved. If, for example, someone imports, say, a repro item from Japan that uses a trademark-protected zipper here in the USA, that item is not eligible for import. If the shipment is just one item and not a storefront purchase of multiple items, the buyer would be typically given a chance to have the merchandise returned to the sender at the buyer's expense, and for days in the storage at Customs, fees could well apply, but if multiple items are involved or if the buyer doesn't want to return the item, the other remedy is for Customs to destroy the merchandise and, in turn, invoice the buyer for payment for this destruction.

I find when talking to many in many industries that import goods to the USA, that there is an overall naive oblivion among individual buyers about the seriousness of what is at stake when importing, and this is even true among small-business owners, many, many of whom fail to perform their research on the correct tariff codes and attendant duties and charges that will apply to their purchases. Who would have thought that leather-welted footwear from Japan was chargeable @ 45% duty???

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Interesting, but really though, do inspectors really know what the leather jacket you bought is worth? With literally everything you can buy online it seems like there is just too much specialized information one would need to even begin to collect taxes on every individual package being imported. As obscure as some of these Japanese clothing companies how would they even know what the value is of the item? I'm assuming they know what's in the box from the shipping info and the scanners but other than that wouldn't they need to really inspect the garment?

Americanaaa Mark said:

Interesting, but really though, do inspectors really know what the leather jacket you bought is worth? With literally everything you can buy online it seems like there is just too much specialized information one would need to even begin to collect taxes on every individual package being imported. As obscure as some of these Japanese clothing companies how would they even know what the value is of the item? I'm assuming they know what's in the box from the shipping info and the scanners but other than that wouldn't they need to really inspect the garment?

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The value could be clearly stated on the import form. That's how people get around it. Declare a lesser value, pay a lesser fee (maybe). I once shipped a brand new Vanson to Italy with the full value listed on the export form. It sailed right thru customs and was delivered in 7 days. That after I read all the horrid stories about the postal service there and a ban on imported leather. I guess you never know.

ton312 said:

The value could be clearly stated on the import form. That's how people get around it. Declare a lesser value, pay a lesser fee (maybe). I once shipped a brand new Vanson to Italy with the full value listed on the export form. It sailed right thru customs and was delivered in 7 days. That after I read all the horrid stories about the postal service there and a ban on imported leather. I guess you never know.

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so basically it's poorly run bureaucracy that's unable to fully enforce silly laws?

seems like if you order stuff from japan just do it through zen market (middle man proxy), and then just have them declare it second hand and ask them to remove the labels and packaging. I'm not sure if they'll actually do this since they'd probably get in trouble. you better know your size and what you're getting cause returns are kinda out the window then. seems easy to avoid without much trickery.

Americanaaa Mark said:

so basically it's poorly run bureaucracy that's unable to fully enforce silly laws?

seems like if you order stuff from japan just do it through zen market (middle man proxy), and then just have them declare it second hand and ask them to remove the labels and packaging. I'm not sure if they'll actually do this since they'd probably get in trouble. you better know your size and what you're getting cause returns are kinda out the window then. seems easy to avoid without much trickery.

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I've had very little buying experience outside the US but I've sold plenty. Somehow, I've never had a problem. At least none I've been made aware of. I've always been a bit gun shy about buying from abroad if not thru a broker of some sort.

ton312 said:

I've had very little buying experience outside the US but I've sold plenty. Somehow, I've never had a problem. At least none I've been made aware of. I've always been a bit gun shy about buying from abroad if not thru a broker of some sort.

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What do you have to worry about buying from abroad if you're ordering from a clothing shop?

Americanaaa Mark said:

What do you have to worry about buying from abroad if you're ordering from a clothing shop?

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I guess it's just the hit or miss duty fees. Would hate to pay an additional half the purchase price in import duties. Just blows the whole thing out of proportion. And I have no idea how/why or when these fees apply.

While I am no different than anyone else and loathe paying any more taxes than need be, duty serves a significant purpose: the laws governing duty are far from "silly laws" and are intended to set a level playing field to protect American businesses from unfair foreign competition. When you think about it, we cannot not pay our fare share of taxes and still expect to retain the same government serves we now enjoy, but how such taxes are applied is another matter, which is outside the discussion scope and place here now. But some of the duties assigned by the powers that be, such as 45% for leather-welted footwear from Japan are, on the face, very silly, largely because there is no significant American shoe industry now left - this was gutted years ago, and not by the Japanese market. If you assign preferential duty rates to China, which is and has been the case, then you have cheap products that are already very cheap compared to the USA-made equivalent become even less fairly priced. That's how, in part, you help destroy American businesses, and high-quality footwear from nations paralleling the USA economy aren't a threat beyond what a dutiable rate of, say, 15% or so might fix.

Customs relies on computers to track everything that enters the USA, and if you've ever imported anything, then you are in their database and they can see everything you ever imported. The system will only grow more sophisticated as time moves on, and required listing of the correct tariff codes will become mandatory on each import document so the software can correlate the type of goods to appropriate values right down to the store level - this is all a matter of technology and we are in a technology age and government needs our money to cover that which has already been spent and will be spent, so the investment has a real cost-value benefit. And proxy services will be required to present invoices for what they are shipping that correctly correspond to declared values - a simple request to fulfill that very few services, if any, will want to manipulate due to the seriousness of such acts.

Some of the inspectors are very knowledgeable about things such as the average labor rate for "widgets" from, say, Japan, and have an excellent idea that no leather jacket from Japan is going to retail for $100, thus anything marked too low in value would be a red flag for these inspectors, but they likely won't know a leather jacket is $3, 000 vs. $1, 500. Japanese customs, from an export perspective, also have their red flags to look for and export values need to make sense to them - both outbound and inbound shipments will be increasingly tracked by computer to minute detail by all major trade partners. But the specialized knowledge of individual inspectors will not be needed in the future as super-sophisticated computer tracking of every shipment becomes more and more the standard and tariff codes are required: the software will know by the tariff code and the shipper or the mandatory listing of manufacturer just what the value should be and it will be pretty close. And when the red flags are tripped, letters are presently generated and sent asking for proof of payment if the shipment made it to the USA, and corresponding proof if caught on the shipper's end. That's when the real fun begins, because interacting with Customs is where time, timeliness, customer service, accountability, and belief in intelligent life falls into a black hole.

Presently, only some of the above-cited practices are in place, so you likely could receive a leather jacket valued at $3, 000 and declared as $1, 500 without a red flag going up, but declaring it as $100 would be asking for serious trouble if you get caught, not that declaring half an item's actual value wouldn't result in serious trouble if caught. And in any illegal-declaration scenario, you will only be able to insure the item for the declared value, thus if the item is lost or damaged, your insurance claim is limited to the declared value.

I'm fairly sure there will always be some way to beat the system, but the system will be harder to beat and the penalties will become more stringent for those caught because the system will take far less kindly to beguilement due to the time, effort, and money spent to create a system that is less susceptible to being gamed.

ton312 said:

Great post. And I've always wondered how they assign that percentage you mentioned...

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Glad this was of some value to you, ton312. What I find more interesting is how they come up with the actual dutiable rate. It's supposed to reflect the offset to a sector and product type being competed against by any given nation, and the amount is determined in committee by Congress, which then means that politics, though not intentioned by design, can become a factor in this amount.

An example of a duty that makes sense would be that assigned to non-exoctic leather jackets (domesticated leathers: cowhide, horsehide, goatskin, etc.) from most, if not all nations, which is presently 6% of value. I say this makes sense because this relatively low rate is, in my opinion, correctly assigned because, say, a cowhide jacket from the EU is not much of a threat to those made in the USA since the industry here is about equal to the EU in size and costs aren't much different.

A sensible duty, as noted above, can be contrasted against the 45% for domestic-leather-welted footwear from Japan, which is significantly less for the same product class if made in China and the USA footwear industry is not being threatened by Japan, at least not from anything I am aware of.

HPA Rep said:

Glad this was of some value to you, ton312. What I find more interesting is how they come up with the actual dutiable rate. It's supposed to reflect the offset to a sector and product type being competed against by any given nation, and the amount is determined in committee by Congress, which then means that politics, though not intentioned by design, can become a factor in this amount.

An example of a duty that makes sense would be that assigned to non-exoctic leather jackets (domesticated animal leathers: cowhide, horsehide, goatskin, etc.) from most, if not all nations, which is presently 6% of value. I say this makes sense because this relatively low rate is, in my opinion, correctly assigned since, say, a cowhide jacket from the EU is not much of a threat to those made in the USA since the industry here is about equal to the EU in size and costs aren't much different.

A sensible duty, as noted above, can be contrasted against the 45% for domestic-leather-welted footwear from Japan, which is significantly less for the same product class if made in China and the USA footwear industry is not being threatened by Japan, at least not from anything I am aware of.

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Thanks Charles...this is precisely why I'd always much prefer to go thru a broker such as yourself. Great info in this thread!

ton312 said:

Thanks Charles...this is precisely why I'd always much prefer to go thru a broker such as yourself. Great info in this thread!

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Thank you for valuing what we do and proving sound minds still exist. I'd like to believe we American businesses that offer such products from abroad also offer a level of service and support that begins well before the sale and goes on into the realm of post sale, thus earning appreciation and perceived value that leads customers to conclude their money is indeed well spent right here at home. Thanks, once again!

HPA Rep said:

Thank you for valuing what we do and proving sound minds still exist. I'd like to believe we American businesses that offer such products from abroad also offer a level of service and support that begins well before the sale and goes on into the realm of post sale, thus earning appreciation and perceived value that leads customers to conclude their money is indeed well spent right here at home. Thanks, once again!

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I've got your site bookmarked. When I can afford it...there has to be some Buzz in my future!

Damn, I had no idea customs is so complex.

When you buy from a distributor in the USA is the custom duties factored into the cost of the item? I've noted some items cost the same here as they do in their country

Americanaaa Mark said:

Damn, I had no idea customs is so complex.

When you buy from a distributor in the USA is the custom duties factored into the cost of the item? I've noted some items cost the same here as they do in their country

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As a business, once you do your homework, dealing with Customs isn't so bad if you consistently give them what they want, but once in a while they'll mess up and it pays you back for any long periods that were relatively placid. I was fortunate to be warned by a knowledgeable importer friend about what they wanted in our earliest days back in the late '80's, so he really saved us from what could have been a lot of grief and I hope some of what I've posted will do the same for even a small number of others here - passing forward the goodwill of another keeps it going!

Generally, yes, duty and all other associated fees (shipping, insurance in transit, processing fees, brokerage fees, currency-conversion fees) should all be included, depending on the business entity. We boldly state this on every product page of our website near the price so buyers know that our price is all inclusive.

Realized final price can be close to that in country of origin or it can be some amount higher, which depends on what the seller paid and their needs. Typically, we get really good prices from manufacturers and can extend what amounts to the lowest prices possible to consumers - these are prices that reflect the lowest cost that still allows us to remain in business. I'm going to say that something like a top seller such as the khaki N-1 jacket is roughly $60 more than if bought in Japan, though if in Japan you'd pay tax of some sort but not shipping, but, at least in theory, you should declare this upon entry to the USA and pay the duty. Duty is 19% on cotton jackets of this type, plus, I think, 30 cents per kilo.

ton312 said:

I've got your site bookmarked. When I can afford it...there has to be some Buzz in my future!

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Thank you so very much! And we'll be waiting to lighten your wallet ... ;-)