Brands and artisans are left in a lurch after international carriers stop shipments to the US
In late August, Chris Rose, a Brisbane-based leather crafter, learned that he could no longer use Australia Post to send products like wallets and card holders to his American customers. The postal carrier, like dozens of others abroad, had temporarily suspended shipping to the U.S. after the Trump administration eliminated a decades-long trade provision called de minimis. About 90% of Rose’s customers are in the U.S., and news of the halt came as a monumental shock.
“I felt sick to my stomach,” he told Modern Retail. “I was immediately faced with the prospect of trying to figure out how to help my wife pay the bills and the mortgage, put food on the table, et cetera. I was scared, frustrated, and anxious, all the while having to pretend everything was fine, because my almost-3-year-old was standing right there getting ready for our fun gymnastics class.”
Rose said Australia Post had previously charged him about $17 to ship to the U.S., much cheaper than the $100 or so to ship using DHL or FedEx. Using a different carrier to circumvent this change could crush his business, Rose said. So, before leaving with his daughter for her gymnastics class, Rose jumped on Reddit to say goodbye to fans of his brand Rose Leather Crafting, which he started as a side business in 2014 while studying at university.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen with my business, because all these changes are so unpredictable and extremely damaging,” he told Modern Retail. “I felt lost.”
Rose is one of many business owners who have been left in a lurch after postal services around the world — including in the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Japan, India and South Korea — temporarily stopped shipping packages to the U.S. All did so before Aug. 29, when the U.S. fully rolled back the de minimis exemption, which had allowed packages valued under $800 to enter the country duty free. Low-value goods are now subject to whatever tariff rate applies to their country of origin, or companies can pay a flat rate of $80-$200 to bring their products in.
In total, 88 postal operators notified the U.N. postal agency that they were suspending some or all services to the U.S. to take time to adjust to the new rules and costs, per The Washington Post. Shipping volumes to the U.S. have since plummeted. The Universal Postal Union said on Sept. 6 that traffic to the U.S. declined by 81% on Aug. 29, compared with the previous Friday.
Marketplaces are having to make changes, as well. On Aug. 25, Etsy suspended U.S. shipping label services for Australia Post, Canada Post, and the U.K.’s Evri and Royal Mail after each announced a halt in deliveries to the U.S. “We are in close contact with these carriers and will reactivate label offerings on Etsy when they are able to support orders into the US with DDP options,” Etsy wrote in an update on its website.
A hit to small brands
Faced with increased costs and continued chaos from tariffs, brands and independent artisans like Rose are now rushing to make a game plan around shipping to the U.S. Some are in a better position than others — including large companies with distribution centers in the U.S. or the financial padding to pay higher duties. However, that hasn’t been the case for many independent brands.
Whether based abroad or in the U.S., these entrepreneurs often rely on local shipping options to get products to the U.S. Most of the time, they’re sending out smaller batches that aren’t conducive to large shipping containers. Many are also already operating on tight margins and don’t have extra cash to weather logistical snafus.
To get products into the U.S. now, these brands could use carriers like DHL Express, UPS and FedEx — but costs are up there, too. “What used to be a $10 shipping cost might now be $30-$50 when you factor in duties, brokerage fees and express carrier premiums,” Sean Henry, CEO of fulfillment and warehousing services provider Stord, told Modern Retail. For U.S.-based brands, Henry said, shipping restrictions “mean their entire direct-to-consumer model from overseas may be broken.”
This can be devastating to founders trying to make ends meet. Take NiK Kacy, for instance, who sells gender-free footwear and accessories. Kacy’s business is based in the U.S., but Kacy has been working with artisans in Mexico to craft shoes and handbags for years. Already, new tariffs have made costs go up “significantly,” Kacy told Modern Retail, and pauses on parcel shipments from Mexico have been the latest hurdle.
“I was planning on releasing a made-to-order collab with a Mexican manufacturer who currently makes my shoes,” Kacy said. “This new restriction is going to be a big problem for my launch.” On Sept. 5, Kacy sent an email to the brand’s customers, saying that some international deliveries “may take longer than usual.”
“I will always communicate with you about potential delays and do everything in my power to get your orders to you safely,” Kacy wrote. “Your understanding means the world to me.”
Kacy is hoping that Mexico’s postal service can resume service to the U.S. soon. In the meantime, the company is trying to find ways to keep its business afloat. “I’m not giving up,” Kacy told Modern Retail. “I’ve been pivoting where I can, launching pop-ups, running survival sales campaigns and leaning into community collaborations. It’s not easy, but the support of my customers and community keeps me moving forward.”
Stord, meanwhile, has been inundated with requests from brands around troubleshooting shipping restrictions. In recent weeks, the company has advised customers to pivot to U.S.-based fulfillment strategies, often through bulk importing. “Instead of shipping individual packages from overseas, we’re working with them to import containers or pallets, stock inventory in our American warehouses and ship domestically,” Henry said.
Carrier whiplash
A big issue is that many of these carriers don’t currently have the infrastructure to calculate the correct tariff costs for all of these shipments. Over the last two weeks, postal services around the world have scrambled to update their systems to allow for proper tariff collection. However, that’s no easy feat, John Harmon, managing director of technology research at Coresight Research, told Modern Retail.
“Carriers are having to reprogram their systems,” he explained. “Many of these [nations] are sovereign countries, and these could be huge IT projects. So, this is not trivial. I think this is going to be a big problem for quite some time.” He added, “[The carriers] may have to track down the vendors or the assisting integrators or recompile the programs. There’s a lot of work to be done.”
Some carriers have already started making some progress, albeit slowly. A week ago, New Zealand’s NZ Post announced it was partially lifting its shipping restrictions on U.S. packages — but only for business customers, Value Added Resource reported. Meanwhile, earlier this week, Australia Post said it would resume shipping to the U.S. on Sept. 25, after working with a third-party platform called Zonos to deal with the tariffs.
“Along with more than 190 other postal providers internationally, we’ve been caught in a fast-moving situation not of our making,” Australia Post executive Gary Starr said in a statement. “The real impact has been on our customers who export their goods to the U.S. accessing our cost-efficient postal service, so we’ve been working around the clock to find a solution.”
Rose, the leather crafter in Brisbane, plans to use Zonos to resume sending packages to his U.S. consumers. Zonos will handle the tariff payments, and Rose will see these deducted from his bank account. “Unfortunately, this does mean that the U.S. customer will face slightly higher prices,” he wrote in an update to customers on Sept. 9.
In a turn of events, Rose is now resuming his business with a number of new fans; his post about de minimis resonated with Redditors so much that his business outside of the U.S. exploded. In fact, Rose received more orders in one week than he did in the previous seven months. Orders have since slowed down, Rose said, “as I expected they would, after such a massive show of support.” But, he remarked, “In the short term, many issues have been solved. Long term, it’s too early to tell how things will go.”
“It’s a changing world at the moment, so hopefully I can adapt and figure it out,” Rose added.