How will the recently implemented tariffs affect your doll collecting?

Thank you for the information. =)

 

I had two Alice's Collections orders arrive earlier this month both shipped out on Sept 4th, one order from the end of February and the other from the end of March. There was no delivery fee at time of arrival and as of right now (the 21st of September) no additional fees have appeared. Shipping was through something called SFgate? (tried to check the shipping service name but my Internet is currently being incredibly slow.) Links to the specific wait lists for the curious: Link to Doll family Wait list and Link to Doll Leaves Wait list.

edited to add: name is SF international.

 

I finally saved enough money to buy my dream doll and of course this whole tariff situation hit. I was hesitant to buy from outside the U.S. but decided to buy my volks yumepi from canada! The seller declared the value much lower and I payed the tariffs up front and wasn’t hit with any surprise fees. She spent a total of 2 days in customs. Im located in California so if anyone is hesitant on purchasing from canada I recommend it as long as you go through usps!

 

FYI - I bought clearance items from Moonlightbjd that were in-stock and shipped from Canada via UPS. Saw that there's a fee that's about 35% of the order total...

Edit: It was $35 total (order was about $88)
Only $11 was the tariff fee and $24 was UPS' brokerage fee

 

Out of curiosity, did you sign into their website to pay or did you pay without a UPS account attached?

 

I paid without a UPS account. It was just linked from the tracking page.

Would it be cheaper with a UPS account?

 

Just received a Xagadoll body ordered through Legend Doll and shipped with SF-Express and there were no tariff charges. Very smooth delivery and super well packed! Took about 12 days to arrive and seemed to stay moving. No hold up in customs at all.

 

Sorry if this is not the place to ask this, but does ANYONE know what the HS tariff code for BJDs actually is? It looks like Australia is finally about to resume shipping to the US, with a whole lot of extra steps and fees attached, so I tried a mock order to check the new prices if I was to ship to the US - and it just keeps coming up with plastic doll when I try to find the HS code, which obviously isn't right! Anyone have any idea?

 

@morganatron Unfortunately "plastic doll" seems to be the closest category – I think BJDs still go in the "toy" category despite being a collectible for adults, as scale models also go in this category.
I think the HS code is 9503. I found this on DFAT which might be helpful: Free Trade Agreement Portal

I'm also trying to work out if Zonos's tariff calculations cover all the fees, or if AusPost is also going to tack on a handling fee...

 

Thank you!!! So it looks like they still fit in the toy category, oh well. I've been reading the Australia Post update they just released, and I don't think they have an extra fee, only the Zonos stuff as far as I can tell? But I'm not sure if there's more fees at the US end. In theory not, but it's very unclear. I haven't worked put yet if things can be posted now or only after 7th October as well - I think it's only after 7th October for non business customers, so I have no idea where that leaves you if you're just trying to sell a doll or doll bits, not as an actual business. The confusion continues...

 

@morganatron Thank you for the clarification on potential fees – I knew a handling fee would be involved from the previous AusPost updates, but I wasn't sure if Zonos would include that in their calculations for tariffs or if that would be on top of that.
I have an AusPost business account – I got one when I started selling things on here and eBay, and you don't need an ABN to have one – so in theory I can send things as of tomorrow, but it's certainly going to be murky waters ahead...

 

Seems like that might be the case. They were going to charge me $54 altogether and then after I signed in, changed to $42. Another person two(?) pages ago had the same thing happen.

 

Not much, because I'm currently trying to save up money. I had to pay a bit extra for the tariffs on Ehecatl, though.

Honestly, by the time things settle down financially and I can afford to buy a doll again, the tariffs may even be lifted.

 

I'm in the US and received a pair of eyes from Poland recently after calculating that I was ok with paying the additional fees, but none were added on when I went to pick them up from the post office. I'm not sure if the seller paid them ahead of time or it's just more inconsistent application of the tariffs, but it was through etsy originally.

 

I had ordered a wig from Ukraine in August, the seller contacted me a couple of times letting me know that shipments to the US had been suspended. She eventually just refunded me and canceled the order. There's too much uncertainty in all of this, and I can't blame sellers for being cautious.

 

I paid $22 for a Rainman Solen head to UPS on 9/15 for the import tax and still haven’t received it. Every day it says it is coming that day from Louisville, Kentucky. Then it gets an import scan, then rescheduled. Then 2 days pass, then the estimate is that day again. Rinse and repeat. I called UPS international and they told me it hadn’t cleared customs; that it can take 3 weeks. So I wait. It now says the estimate is tomorrow.

Does anyone know if the shutdown will stop customs since they won’t get paid?

 

Looks like customs is safe.

 

@Mahgiep that hadn't even occurred to me. I have a package in customs too.
It's one thing after another.

 

Interesting!

Out of curiosity, what type of item(s) did the package contain? Doll parts? Clothing (homemade, an individual dealer like velvet*paw, a company like MELODY.C or DollHeart?), shoes, eyes, wigs...? I'm wondering if particular things or manufacturers/locations are more likely to squeak by without taxes or not.