No. of Recommendations: 5
To the point above: The $800 threshold removes a lot of the burdens that go along with customs reporting. The result has been relatively frictionless individual deliveries to U.S. consumers, often with little and predictable waiting time.
The cost to U.S. consumers by the eventual removal of de minimumus will therefore go beyond the duty to paid. It includes the administrative cost of increased customs reporting & the increased delay and unpredictability that follows from these administrative burdens. Shein/TEMU are already moving to get around this by increasing their U.S. presence, and I'm sure they'll have some success, but the free lunch is almost over.
The likely result for China-sourced products will be price increases above the duty paid, and the removal of large swaths of low-ticket items that aren't worth the customs hassle of shipping.
See:
https://archive.ph/vichC ("Temu and Shein Raised Prices, Removed Products as Trump’s China Tariffs Went Into Effect")
Shi, a Chinese seller of arts and crafts products on Temu who asked only to use his surname for privacy reasons, tells WIRED that the company raised prices on his goods by 50 percent this week, while the number of orders he received on Friday decreased by about 30 percent compared to normal. Temu also made some of his products temporarily unavailable on the platform, but he says that he expects them to come back later.
Unlike eBay and other ecommerce sites, Temu controls the prices consumers pay for products, rather than allow sellers to set them. Shi says that, at least for now, Temu is continuing to pay sellers the same wholesale prices for his goods as it usually does. Temu generally doesn’t notify him of price hikes, and in this case, he says it hasn’t communicated about what the platform is doing to combat the tariffs. He adds that shipping speeds have slowed down, too. ...
Lorianna Calhoun, a Shein shopper, tells WIRED that of the roughly 170 items that were once on her Shein wish list, 40 now appear to be unavailable.
Whether DG can get some of these discount dollars remains to be seen. My guess is their recent announcement of moving into the same-day delivery space (the writing on de minimus was on the wall, including due to Biden's Sept announcement, when they made the early December announcement re same day delivery) suggests they think they can, but that they can't rely on in store sales to get there.
