Duty-free shipping to U.S. ends Friday. Canadian businesses are ‘fearful’

(Web News)Canadian online sellers are warning that their businesses are under threat as the United States plans to start charging duties on low-value parcels from Friday.

Until now, goods worth less than $800 have been allowed to enter the United States duty-free under what is known as the de minimis exemption. But in July, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that from Aug. 29 all parcels will need to pay “all applicable duties.”

That will impose an added cost and paperwork on Canadian online sellers who have previously shipped to the United States under the de minimis exemption.
“It’s a big deal,” said Dave Pelkey, owner of The Vintage Crate in Arnprior, Ont.

One of his online storefronts makes 60 per cent of its sales to customers in the U.S., but he worries that added burden of duties will hurt his business.

“It really will make products coming from Canada very unattractive from a price perspective,” he said.

‘Huge impact’
In recent years, the number of parcels entering the United States under the de minimis exemption has risen to over 1.3 billion annually. While many of these arrive from e-commerce giants in China, Canadian online sellers have also benefited from the exemption.

But with the elimination of de minimis, some Canadian Etsy and eBay sellers have added notes to their profiles saying they will stop selling to customers in the United States.

“The small Etsy retailers, the eBays … all these online retailers are going to have a huge impact with this. This is going to change trade much more than what the tariffs did,” said U.S. customs broker Damon Piatek.