Are any U.S. stores willing to share how they’re handling the new, erratic tariffs?

We source almost everything from U.S. suppliers, but about 3% of our parts (by value) come from China—and those parts are critical. No U.S. manufacturer makes them, and supposed “alternatives” from other countries seem to be Chinese goods in disguise.

One expected shipment has gone AWOL, and we’re getting concerned.

Anyone else seeing similar issues or have insights to share?

I have 2 orders in the works in China - $88,000 in merch.
I have asked them to hold the shipments for now.
I am not sure how long they will hold them.
I have already sent over $40k towards the items and I expect if I cancel that would not be refunded.

I am just hoping something will happen that they lower it back down.
Some of these items will not sell at double (or more) the current price. People will just do without.

Thanks,
David

I’m curious how U.S. Customs determines a product’s country of origin.

If we hired a supplier in Taiwan to source and assemble parts mostly from China, then add locally-made packaging, would Customs consider the final product to be from Taiwan—or still from China?

Edited to Add- here's the search response:

If the supplier in Taiwan just assembles Chinese parts and adds Taiwanese packaging, that likely does not qualify as substantial transformation. Customs would still treat it as a Chinese product.

What does count as substantial transformation?

A manufacturing process that changes the product’s essential character or use

Assembly that requires skilled labor and results in a new and different article

A value-added process that creates a distinct commercial product

For borderline cases, companies sometimes request a Customs Ruling in advance to get clarity.

I feel sorry for you. :(

Mike Beebe
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Solution: move our manufacturing to a country with a reasonable U.S. tariff that lets us import components freely.

Mexico, here we come!

In the end, it's just going to encourage cheating the system.
Also China companies will be (more) encouraged to sell direct - even proprietary products formerly off limits, will be up for grabs.
I don't care where you lean politically, this is just bad for everyone and no one will be immune from this problem.
Right now, businesses are dealing with it, but soon, it will impact consumers in a big way.

David

I’m no expert, but I expect the U.S. stock market to take a massive hit once investors grasp the full impact.

Yea, I sold off all of my stocks more than a month ago.
Most had made profit.
Right now, if I had kept them, I would have lost about 5k versus when I sold.

David

I have seen some of our vendors actually have a Line Item at checkout that shows the tariff amount, and collects it just like a tax. I am sure it is not easy to manage with how much fluctuation is going on, but might be a thought. I was thinking of using one of the custom fields as "Country of Origin".

Would it be possible to have an additional table in the DB similar to how state taxes are, that have country of origin, and tariff %, or something similar? Just spitballing here at this point, but it does not look like this will fly by overnight, and may become a global headache for at least a few months, if not a few years.

Just a thought as a stop-gap but would the "handling charge" be suitable for this?

Vince

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That may work. Currently "Shipping and Handling" summarize into one line at the checkout. Is it possible to show them in two separate lines?

Assuming there’s a way to configure Handling as a separate line item and rename it something descriptive, I prefer that approach.

With that in mind, I asked ChatGPT for some name suggestions:

- Manufacturing Impact Fee
- Supply Chain Surcharge
- Trade Policy Surcharge
- Global Materials Fee
- Tariff Recovery Fee
- Policy-Driven Fees

Any other creative ideas?

Note: except for the current (hopefully temporary) situation, I prefer the Cart’s existing approach of combining Handling and Shipping into a single line item.

BTW, I think that imposing an outrageously high tariff on non-contraband goods from a single country is a policy that is likely to fail.

Why? Because manufacturers in China can simply ship component parts to countries with lower U.S. tariffs, where basic assembly and the addition of a few low-tech parts is enough to meet Customs and Border Protection’s definition of "substantial transformation."

For example, I bet there are plenty of craft woodworkers in Mexico who could take brass emblems from China, combine them with locally-turned wooden bases, and put them in a "Hecho en México" box to make sports trophies. Presumably this would cost less than the 245% maximum duty we keep hearing about.

The eventual result is that nearly identical products of Chinese origin might still be imported at a much lower duty rate.

Actually, I take that back as you can't set a Handling Charge per-country. But you can set a Country Tax rate per country which is what a Tariff is in a sense I guess. Do you all think that would work? If so, I can make some changes to alter the text from "Country Tax" to "Tariff" for international orders.

Vince

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Vince, we’re looking to add a Handling fee to all orders - regardless of the destination - calculated as a percentage of the product cost.

Do you see any way to display this as a line item that is separate from the Shipping fee, and to create a custom name for it?

Hi Paul
Normally it is a separate line item unless you have the parameter "combineshippinghandling=TRUE" set. Could you check if you have that?

Vince

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Good catch, Vince.

Yes, I did find $combineshippinghandling=TRUE; in our includes file.

So we'll remove that should we need to add a tariff surcharge.