Shipping into US from Buyee now 20% charge

[greenc]

Thanks for the responses everyone, I appreciate it. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the market over the next few months - with any luck we'll all find pieces closer to our respective homes. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Chris

 

[tuanhng614]

Buyee is running a Mercari campaign with 20% right now. It might help softening the tariff fee blow.

In the past, they mostly had 7-10% discount campaigns, anything beyond 12% is very rare. But I noticed in the recent time with uncertainty on the tariff issue that they have more often campaigns with higher discount.

 

[greenc]

Thank you for alerting the group, I saw this last night and contacted Buyee support. It only works on items on Mercari Shops and the Fashion category so you need to search appropriately.

This effectively neutralizes the 20% tariff fee Buyee is tacking onto the shipping charge. Very nice.

 

[tuanhng614]

Thank you for alerting the group, I saw this last night and contacted Buyee support. It only works on items on Mercari Shops and the Fashion category so you need to search appropriately.

This effectively neutralizes the 20% tariff fee Buyee is tacking onto the shipping charge. Very nice.

Right. Mercari campaign is separated from Japan Yahoo Auctions campaign. Buyee typically alternates between the two.

 

[Pandemic]

I was reading an article saying that SCOTUS is likely to uphold the lower courts’ striking down of the tariffs but the middle of next month. I was going to order a deck jacket from China but now I’m thinking it’s worth holding off 6 weeks to see what happens.

 

[greenc]

@Pandemic I read that too - will be very interesting to see what happens. The article I saw said that if SCOTUS overturns the tariffs then the federal government has to pay back the $216 billion that it has already collected from U.S. companies importing goods, which would be a monumental task.

 

[Pandemic]

@Pandemic I read that too - will be very interesting to see what happens. The article I saw said that if SCOTUS overturns the tariffs then the federal government has to pay back the $216 billion that it has already collected from U.S. companies importing goods, which would be a monumental task.

Interesting. I missed that part. I guess I could order now and know that if I get dinged with extra duties I will eventually get them refunded if things change.

But if the shipper pays the duties, I doubt a Chinese eBay seller will get a refund from the US government and pass it back on to the buyer!

 

[greenc]

I'm thinking that the reimbursement will be to companies that are getting tariffs levied on large shipments - I think it would be hard to expect individual refunds on small purchases, but who knows.

 

[mcnuonuo]

IRS can't even handle my taxes right. I'm not holding my faith on $30 tariff they collected from me.

 

[Leathergato]

My package just arrived from japan with no tariffs levied on it either by FJ when I paid for international shipping Sep 01, or by fedex when delivered Sep 03.

The goods were miusa but I don’t see that marked on the label so idk if I got lucky or if they were labeled as such on some other form that wasn’t on the package.

I’m also gonna order some jackets from china before x-mas, we’ll see how that goes, oh and btw I already found that labrea for less than brake house.

I purchased 2 jackets from Japan through different retailers that arrived last month. I wasn’t charged customs fees for either of them. That was before August 30th though.

 

[tuanhng614]

I purchased 2 jackets from Japan through different retailers that arrived last month. I wasn’t charged customs fees for either of them. That was before August 30th though.

End of August was the cut off, so your jackets were safe.

It would be interesting to hear from other loungers who have their jackets coming in this week and next week.

 

[tuanhng614]

In regard to policy changes, it will be a slug and creates further chaos and confusion.

I’ll continue to sideline myself for the moment.

 

[TheJewishJesus]

Aside from the potential ramifications of the Supreme Court striking down the tariffs (and who knows what that ultimately looks like from a response and implementation perspective), I did see that the US and Japan struck a trade deal this week. As far as I understand, the deal should change the handling of import duties + tariffs from Japan to be a flat 15% duty + tariff for most items (automobiles, aerospace, etc. are separate). Possible I misunderstood as import/export law was not my specialty before this year, but if that interpretation is correct then this should lower import duties and tariffs on goods from Japan by 15-25% in most cases. I've heard of people getting hit with massive customs clearing charges from FedEx and UPS, or ultimately in the case of any shipment that isn't DDP.

Hopefully, this all simplifies importing such that Japan Post resumes deliveries to the US. As of now, many independent Japanese businesses rely on Japan Post (EMS, AVIA, Surface) for shipments.

 

[Pliksoff]

End of August was the cut off, so your jackets were safe.

It would be interesting to hear from other loungers who have their jackets coming in this week and next week.

All of my FedEx and ECMS packages from Japan have been hit with customs fees over the past two weeks (including packages that were shipped weeks before the cutoff but didn't clear customs in time). FedEx is upcharging fees too but I'm not in a position to dispute them for fear of confiscation/disposal.

Anecdotally, shipping has definitely become messier out there - two of my packages are still stuck in transit somewhere, another got entangled in a paperwork mixup (HS code shenanigans), and one more has been lost/stolen by a local carrier (UniUni).

I never experienced any shipping issues whatsoever when I went on an importing binge during the summer, so the recent turn of events has really made me reconsider my future purchases.

if anyone else is importing an expensive item from Japan, I'd definitely stay away from ECMS/UniUni. Japan Post really was the best of the lot...

 

[greenc]

@Pliksoff I'm sorry to hear about the shipping experience, that's a sincere drag. I've never had any issues shipping from Japan and it was almost a standard 10 days to the States every time. I wonder what how the confusion around everything is actually slowing things down. Where's the bottleneck?

 

[Pliksoff]

On your fedex packages, were they declared over $800, or between $100 & $800?

Also, were you billed on delivery or did the mail you an invoice days after delivery?

One package above $800, the rest were below (ranging from $70 to $240).

With FedEx, I received email notifications a few days before delivery to pay online (I used PayPal) - the email mentioned that I would otherwise be billed on delivery if I didn't pay online.

With ECMS, I received email notifications to pay online - I'm pretty sure they wouldn't proceed with the shipment until the fees were paid.

Edit: Forgot to mention, these carriers will all add their own clearance/brokerage "processing" fees as well, so the expenses rack up quickly if you have multiple shipments. It's probably best to combine smaller packages together.

 

[Pliksoff]

@Pliksoff I'm sorry to hear about the shipping experience, that's a sincere drag. I've never had any issues shipping from Japan and it was almost a standard 10 days to the States every time. I wonder what how the confusion around everything is actually slowing things down. Where's the bottleneck?

I suspect the bottleneck's mostly at US customs, and when the packages are released from customs to the local carrier.

My packages were shipped out of Japan without any issues, but they're stalling once they arrived at the US inbound offices and/or handed over to local carriers. Just last week I had to contact both the shipper and a FedEx clearance broker to sort out some HS code mixup, which took several days of back-and-forth communications.

One of my package's tracking stopped updating after being ostensibly released from US customs on August 29, and I couldn't get any info about its whereabouts. Now I'm waiting for the shipper to complete the claims and compensation process which could take several more weeks.

Hopefully everything will settle down if/when that trade deal gets finalized.

 

[tuanhng614]

All of my FedEx and ECMS packages from Japan have been hit with customs fees over the past two weeks (including packages that were shipped weeks before the cutoff but didn't clear customs in time). FedEx is upcharging fees too but I'm not in a position to dispute them for fear of confiscation/disposal.

Anecdotally, shipping has definitely become messier out there - two of my packages are still stuck in transit somewhere, another got entangled in a paperwork mixup (HS code shenanigans), and one more has been lost/stolen by a local carrier (UniUni).

I never experienced any shipping issues whatsoever when I went on an importing binge during the summer, so the recent turn of events has really made me reconsider my future purchases.

if anyone else is importing an expensive item from Japan, I'd definitely stay away from ECMS/UniUni. Japan Post really was the best of the lot...

It ***** to hear your story. And it is entirely what i had anticipated when the de minimis rule ended.

I hope things clear up for you soon and for us as a community.

 

[floater]

I suspect the bottleneck's mostly at US customs, and when the packages are released from customs to the local carrier.

My packages were shipped out of Japan without any issues, but they're stalling once they arrived at the US inbound offices and/or handed over to local carriers. Just last week I had to contact both the shipper and a FedEx clearance broker to sort out some HS code mixup, which took several days of back-and-forth communications.

One of my package's tracking stopped updating after being ostensibly released from US customs on August 29, and I couldn't get any info about its whereabouts. Now I'm waiting for the shipper to complete the claims and compensation process which could take several more weeks.

Hopefully everything will settle down if/when that trade deal gets finalized.

I’m thinking the bottleneck is more likely on the packages that are actually getting hit with new tariffs.

I had a package from japan arrive without issues in 3 days, but I didn’t get hit with any extra fees.

 

[Kulak545]

I used buyee this morning for a leather jacket and there was no additional price yike.