How will the recently implemented tariffs affect your doll collecting?

I received my AC order containing an Impldoll body. I am a little unsure how the get away with their no tariffs but you honestly cannot tell the box is coming from china unless you look at the tracking. I was out of town but have not received a tariff payment request as of now. Always keeping my eyes peeled. Box was not even opened by customs but box had a change sticker saying it contained batteries so that was interesting!

 

So, this wasn’t for a doll, but for a doll accessory (?) sort of. I ordered an art doll from Poland and it shipped via FedEx. It arrived to me on February 9 and was delivered with no request for payments, no customs notifications, or anything of the sort.

An ENTIRE MONTH LATER, March 8, I got an email and text from FedEx requesting I pay a $40 fee.

I think that’s so messed up.

 

Deliveries from Alice/other Chinese companies using SF International arrive without additional fees. You can track your package using their website: 顺丰国际官网

A lot of carriers have resorted to this because they simply don't have the warehouse space to store it and stuff can go terribly wrong if it's "somewhere." While it's super frustrating, what could happen is what happened to me with FedEx: they screwed up the customs process and sent my package out to my city where it sat for 30 days before being sent to their massive, missing/damaged mail warehouse (before having proper customs paperwork).

Despite it being there and customs paperwork being released after where I also paid duties, FedEx refuses to help or make the final delivery. They have told me there's nothing more anyone else can do. I have called and spoken with 20+ people, and since they also won't respond to the shipper, they filed a claim. I didn't even get a full refund of the $65 shipping they charged, and with the declared value, they priced it out per kg, and paid out only 0.4 (because the item wasn't a full kg) x declared value. We lost $200 worth of doll items that cannot be remade or replaced. I'm still really salty about how this all went down.

 

@honeyedbiscuit Oh my goodness. That is so dang awful. And scary that they would so such a thing.

 

Thank you for the sympathies! It was so disappointing to say the least. My friend who sold me the outfits (3 beautiful handmade ones) ended up sending me an outfit as a compensation using not FedEx, so we both split the loss, which was kind of her. I thought expensive international priority that had a 1-2 day delivery time would've been safe enough, but not if they mess up the customs paperwork. I still don't know why they can't pull my item out the warehouse and make the delivery, but given the fact no one will respond, and those who I've talked to say "it's beyond the point of delivery" (whatever that means), I've begrudgingly come to peace with it. I don't like FedEx in the US due to all the delays, and I thought international FedEx would be competent, but nope.

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On another note, I received my accessory order from Ringdoll last week. Ringdoll underdeclared, but I was still charged 10%. While the Supreme Court ruled the IEEPA tariffs were illegal, that didn't stop Trump from issuing another sweeping 10% tariff under the Trade Act which is expected to expire in July. Since Ringdoll uses DHL, DHL charged me 10% of declared value, a regulatory fee of $1.80 or so, and their brokerage fee for not having a *shipper* account. That was $17.50.

So tariffs/duties still exist. Even if this drops off in July, de minimis still hasn't been reinstated, so it's very possible that many items will be subject to fees still, especially if using UPS/FedEx/DHL/private couriers.

 

Received an order today from Stacy's Pink Ocean delivered via UPS. The order total was around $600 and UPS collected fees before delivery of $25. If I'm not mistaken, Stacy's is based in Shanghai and the doll maker is based in China as well, but the order was shipped to me from Korea. Not sure of the declared value yet and I am not sure I will bother finding out, since the fee was so negligible and it arrived safe and sound.

 

I think they slapped the UPS label over it, sadly! I tried peeling it off to check but no luck. If I decide to try break out a razor blade and give it a real try, I will update.

Edit to update: I did indeed go at the label with a blade and found the declared value! $100 declared, $25 fee at customs.

 

I too got Fedex latent billing, package from Poland in January for a 1/4 doll head. just received the customs bill in mid-March, about $72. FedEx has a minimum brokerage fee of $15, or 2% whichever is higher, so that's lumped into that total.
Wish they'd tighten up the billing gap, but grateful to receive it and not have it lost in the FedEx warehouse neitherworld.

it's just straight up piracy - that seizing of packages, especially when the recipient has paid and communicated. i am so sorry to hear how many of us have experienced it.

 

My tariff for my DD Sakura Miku came out to $87 and some change. Even with the additional charge, it still ended up being cheaper to order her through Volks JP than to order her through VolksUSA.

 

My Dream Valley order (ordered through Alice Collections) shipped through SF International arrived a week early (arrived 3/19 estimated arrival date was the 26th). I was asleep I woke up to it on my doorstep! It seems like there is no additional fees or tariffs due.

 

Alice's Collections says on their website that they are tariff free for their customers but that they get to choose the shipping company. The items I have ordered from them have come without a problem and they have been tariff free.

From their website:
Notice for Alice's Collections US customers:

Dear customers from the USA,

You can enjoy tariff-free (except for Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico) for shipments from ACBJD, please note that we'll decide the shipping company that is used at the best overall benefit for our US customers, the current shipping time of most shipments to the USA is 1 to 2 weeks.

Regarding shipments to Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, it's also tariff-free for air mail shipments.

Thank you so much for your support and understanding.

All the best,
AC Team

 

I found a pair of shoes and a belt bag that perfectly fit the vibe I'm going for with my doll, but the artist is not currently shipping to the US or Canada. Thankfully, I have a friend in Wales that was willing to receive the package for me and send it along, but I'll have to see how much I'm going to pay in fees to actually get it to me.

 

It's definitely going to affect my doll collecting. I'm going to stick to US based sellers and companies for the time being until they are lifted as the extra fees are not something that I really want to factor into whatever I am purchasing. I already pay for shipping, insurance and the item itself, so the cost of adding a tariff will make it sway my opinion. I do hope they lift the tariffs or reconsider them. </3

 

It's affected my doll collecting in that I carefully read everything about the seller's shipping information. That way I can try to be prepared. I just hope there will be no more unhappy surprises. Last Fall I bought two outfits from one of my favorite Etsy shops. The seller is from Vietnam. Shortly before my package was due to be delivered, I received a notification from the US Postal Service that they classified it as a counterfeit package. It was seized and marked as destroyed. No explanation from the USPS why they thought it was a counterfeit package either.

The seller was a sweetheart as always (I've bought from him many times) and quickly shipped out replacements to me. They arrived with no issue. I'm still not sure why it happened. I've heard rumors that this happened to quite a few Etsy & Ebay transactions. The whole thing has been such a poorly handled hot mess that I'm hoping the expiration of the current tariff will just be the end of it.

 

The only international doll shipping experience I’ve had so far (besides with Alice who I know is tariff free, that package is in transit right now) was buying a secondhand head and having it shipped to the US through Superbuy. I declared the exact amount because it was my first time shipping that way and I was nervous about things going wrong haha. I chose one of their duty-free air lines and the shipping cost was pretty reasonable, though I didn’t get any of my deposit money refunded so I wonder if the final price was higher than their estimate and they just took care of the extra lol. (This was back in Jan-early Feb so I’m unsure how much things might’ve changed since.)

I’d been considering ordering a 1/4 Conarium head via Stacy’s Pink Ocean but the info on their site about shipping/tariffs was a bit confusing to me, and I was nervous about being slapped with a bunch of unexpected fees so I decided not to order Someone had told me that shipping fees and duties had doubled the price of their Conarium head, but I wasn’t sure if that was straight from the artist or through Stacy’s…if anyone has experience with that specific situation I’d love to hear it!

 

Does anyone have any experience with importing stuff and tariffs from Brazil? I've seriously been eyeballing something secondhand that's in Brazil, but I'm scared to death of what kind of tariffs and fees I might get hit with, or it getting held captive or destroyed...but it's discontinued and fairly hard to find...