How will the recently implemented tariffs affect your doll collecting?

Early this morning I paid my shipping invoice from buyee 7548 yen shipping + 10,180 yen customs duty = 126.05 usd for 1 msd bjd and 2 msd outfits from seperate mecari japan listings but consolidated into one package. Shipping method ECMS and they listed each item as a plush doll.

 

I am so so sorry .... Good grief

 

Hello, I recently made a purchase with legenddoll and it’s been shipped via UPS I was told not to worry about tariffs. Has anyone had a similar experience?

 

Update from local : The ems to usa from Japan is now totally suspended. There are still a few other way to send small item to the usa though.

I wish this resolve in a good way soon

 

Which makes even less sense then, because I've been ordering stuff from China all over the place in the midst of it all. Everything I've ordered has been under $100.00 even with shipping, including this order. This was the first time I'd ever gotten hit with them.

 

International ordering of anything for me (in USA) has just- as of this week- ground to a smashing HALT. The rules at the moment are making it really costly, complicated, or both.

 

I’m not going to be able to give a certain answer to what happened, but here are the first few things that come to mind:

1. China has been doing some prepaid tariffs. I personally experienced this through buying something on eBay. I was not charged tariffs directly, rather they were included in the price (which had been $28 one week and then around $36 the next). The tariffs were “paid” by the seller when the shipping cost had been paid for.

2. China has been using other shipping routes to circumvent their customers having to pay tariffs. Now that every country is subject to tariffs, it doesn’t matter which route China makes to get a parcel to a USA customer, everything gets tariffed

 

I think both your points are true for this case, because it is very rare that I use DHL and a lot of my orders are from China on eBay that use airmail by default. Though, speaking of eBay, I am now spotting a bunch of puppet listings from some international shops stating that they are suspending orders to the USA. Bleh.

 

Other than just China, it seems other countries may have to prepay tariffs when shipping to the US: for Australia, we'll have to go through a US Customs-approved third-party company to ship parcels. The announcement on Australia Post's website said this "enables duties to be collected and paid to CBP via Zonos® [the company in question] prior to your goods arriving in the US".
The implication from the announcements seems to be that these fees will be passed onto both senders and receivers of US-bound parcels, and as yet there's no information on how much postage will be to the US compared to the costs prior to the end of the de minimus.

 

I had heard of them before for some reason, but the fact that Zonos seems to be the only approved partner... I find it interesting. Canadian friends have been struggling with it, but they have to connect them to their own shops and then CanadaPost. Hopefully some of the major marketplaces will deal with some of that for seller, at least, but yeah it may well cost you in addition to us...

 

US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit earlier today deemed that the tariffs that have been imposed are illegal, though unfortunately nothing is going to be done about it until 14 October. Apparently this is to give the administration time to take it up with the Supreme Court. The tariffs for now are still very much in effect.

Makes me wonder how many countries will bother to add whole new systems to collect taxes for another country when it could change in about a month and a half.

What a mess.

 

I have nothing new to add, but I want to say I really appreciate the updates from our international members, because it's so hard to get current information on the US end.

 

What rotten timing to make my once in a lifetime Volks Sato FCS order as an American. And I just so happen to have a head out for a faceup in South Korea. Both were supposed to arrive sometime in late September.

 

@Ayaka Interesting that Canadians have to go through Zonos as well, and that it seems to be the only approved partner...

 

So far, none of my orders (doll-related or otherwise) have been hit by the tariffs, though at least two of them were sent by a less common method to avoid them. But I was just surprised by an email from DollSphere saying my order of two heads is on its way, via Yanwen. Not sure what to expect, under the current circumstances. I'll add my results later!

 

I was shocked at the price of shipping for a little doll dress because of the tariffs. No more buying from outside the USA for me.

 

I had my last doll arrive today. I had ordered through ACBJD. The doll was shipped via SF, followed by UPS when it got to the U.S.

I paid no tariffs on it so far. When I had a package come through FedEx the tariffs came a month later, so I am keeping that in mind in case I eventually get a bill. So far so so good.

That is last doll I will be getting for awhile, it was ordered before this mess started, and I am glad that I have no more dolls that I am waiting on. I have plenty of things to do with my current dolls. Good luck to everyone still waiting on something to come in.

 

For what it's worth, several anime figure sellers like amiami and HobbyLink Japan are currently dealing with the tariffs by holding on to the orders and just waiting it out for the moment. HLJ has a warehouse system already but amiami normally ships out on release but announced they would be holding stuff too. With the rules seemingly changing at a drop of a hat, I wonder if more companies/dealers of BJDs as well will end up just holding onto stock versus trying to ship it out while jumping through all the hoops to do so. Has anyone had a BJD they ordered be held without shipping, with or without a request from the buyer to do so? Has anyone asked about it recently(i.e. since the date of de minimus supposedly ending- though I know that legit just happened)? I don't know about space issues especially for smaller companies but if the tariffs are going to repealed with this legal case somehow, might it be best to just wait on shipping things to the USA until it blows over?

 

Waiting to ship might be a wise move, since the picture could change again in October. Supposedly that's when the Supreme Court will be ruling on whether universal tariffs are legal.

 

I want to know more about the tariff partner services and carriers charging both the seller and the recipient. to my knowledge the recipient bears the cost, so the double dipping seems opportunistic.

if the tariff is prepaid, i suppose you could see both getting charged if it was calculated incorrectly, but I've not seen any breakdowns yet of this kind of double invoicing. I know it takes time for these events to trickle through our pre-order driven market, I'm very interested to see how it shakes out.

another example: Dollmore's recent notice explains an 8% prepaid tariff via FedEx, but 4 days ago the rate from SKR to USA was published at 15% - hard to tell if it's a pricing consideration, or the recipient will also get a bill on delivery.

fingers crossed the Supreme Court is able to neutralise some of the more drastic changes. i hope the de minimus is under consideration to review and reinstate for at least most countries with an established rate and plan. I'm so saddened to see especially our community's (and others!) individual artists being deeply affected.