Is there going to be NO MECHANISM for Canadian sellers to add a line item for USA tariffs due?

[dhslk]

Hello. Since the Aug. 29 de minimis end, I have not been shipping to the USA. I took a vacation etc. while waiting for the dust to settle with Canada Post etc, then blocked USA buyers. I have been asked by buyers in the USA if I would ship to them and I am willing to do so, but am NOT WILLING to pay a cent of the tariff for them. Is ebay ever going to add some sort of mechanism for the buyer to pay the tariff due?

ebay could just integrate Zonos into the payment process and give the seller the number generated so that the seller can use it when purchasing Canada Post labels (I have a Canada Post account) to show that duties/tariffs are paid. This seems the easiest solution, as labels could be generated on any platform that the seller wants (ebay, Canada Post, etc.)

The majority of the items that I sell are in the $75-$500 range and are not made in Canada/US so the tariffs due could be quite substantial. If a buyer is willing to pay it, I am willing to ship it.

Has anyone found a solution?

[dhslk]

...in other words, use a similar process to adding VAT to UK/EU orders.

[reallynicestamps]

FWIW- on my new listings I have added "US buyers may be subject  to the Trump Tariff"  to my descriptions.

I have also been making Best Offers  to eligible browsers now that Canada Post is working again.

And I have been adding the same warning to those Offers.

While it may discourage US buyers, I feel it may actually encourage domestic and overseas buyers 

But then I am a **bleep**-eyed optimist, immature and incurably green.

[dhslk]

But what do you do if you get a USA buyer? How do you charge the tariff? I assume ebay won't protect us if we were to send an after payment invoice for tariffs due. ebay could send some sort of disclaimer that USA buyers should expect a separate bill for tariffs and that they either have to pay it or request a cancellation of the sale (with no penalty to anyone) but I would be shocked if ebay actually did this (it would be extremely easy to do).

[sapphyres-designer-jewellery]

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@dhslk wrote:

But what do you do if you get a USA buyer? How do you charge the tariff? I assume ebay won't protect us if we were to send an after payment invoice for tariffs due. ebay could send some sort of disclaimer that USA buyers should expect a separate bill for tariffs and that they either have to pay it or request a cancellation of the sale (with no penalty to anyone) but I would be shocked if ebay actually did this (it would be extremely easy to do).

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There's a seller in Australia (and someone admitted to it here) that is creating a listing for "tariffs" for the buyer to prepay the tariff on their item that they bought.

While people are doing it as a work around solution, for one... if the buyer doesn't pay, then what do you do? Cancel? You kind of aren't supposed to be doing that, it can get you banned from here, and cancelling because a buyer doesn't purchase another listing for tariffs is not a valid reason for cancelling.

I'm also thinking this sort of thing is against eBay policy, but I haven't heard of any enforcement on this yet. I don't think eBay permits listings to be created for the purpose of collecting the buyer's tariff.

C.

[cottagewoman]

For CPC shipping and front end collection of tariffs to occur, 2 things need to happen:
1. CPC has a fully integrated tariff solution in place, not the Sonos hack. This solution needs to have an API available to estimate tariffs and return it to eBay.
2. EBay needs to develop an integration with the CPC provided tool(s) that will be able to determine appropriate HTS codes based on an items category and description that it can send to CPC code and get results back for tariff estimates. They most likely have something in place currently for their integration to the 3rd party who is operating eIS.

The chances of both of these things occuring are HIGHLY unlikely with the current state of affairs. And don't forget, the current administrations DSP requirement is the only one in the world. No other jurisdiction requires this level of complexity. Every other country takes on the role of tariff collection with their own offices.

[ypdc_dennis]

The only current method is if you get enrolled in the new eBay.ca International Shipping program and ship through it to the USA (buyer pays at time of purchase for tariff/duties).

[intimewithmusic]

Hello @dhslk , 

   I've attached eBay's new program via the link below. You might not have seen it. It explains eBay's work in progress for changes so your buyer will see and pay the tariffs before checkout. 

   Unfortunately there's a HUGE caveat for sellers who ship from western, northern and remote Canadian locations like us.  We pay for shipping all items to Mississaugua, Ontario before eBay redirects them to the buyer.  You appear to have larger widgets like myself forcing the use of Expedited Parcel. the smaller items will also be compromised with respect to competing for price and shipping in the US market place. 

   This means if your buyer lives in Point Roberts Washington their purchase will travel 9000 kms to eventually get to Washington instead of 41 kms from Burnaby. Nice... not exactly the greenest or speediest of programs.

  Your options are;

1. Offer EIS (See link below)

2. Offer direct shipping using Zonos.  You must pay the tarrif and administration fees yourself before shipping postal without collection from your buyer.

3. Offer UPS or Fedex The buyer pays the tariff on receipt or, in some cases gets billed unexpectedly long after receipt as is many UPS transactions. In many case the item gets returned/and or destroyed. (Not recommended, bad things can happen) 

 It's optional but eBay is allowing us to offer all 3 options in each listing. The buyer chooses the least painful. 

eBays EIS Program Details (Canada) 

Regards,

IT

[dhslk]

This is so frustrating. I have $700 of potential sales to the USA just today with buyers willing to pay tariffs (or, at least, to wait for a tariff 'bill' to see if they wish to buy still. BUT THERE IS NO MECHANISM for charging them, even if they want to pay.

I'm trying to figure out a work around for them. The Australian one is not, in my opinion, a good one, even just from the tax perspective (it will appear as income, when it is just tax collection).

I am leery to work with Zonos, but there is no reason that ebay can't work with it on their platform. This seems to be a much fairer solution than foisting it off on Canada Post (when it should be the US Customs/USPS's job).

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

Your only option is to build it directly into the US shipping price. 

This will be easy to do if you only ship to the USA and no other international destinations, or if you ship internationally but only use flat rates. If you use flat rates, you can edit the US rate to include your projected Zonos costs. So if Tracked Packet is $10 and Zonos is $20, you'd charge $30.

If you use calculated rates, this will not be possible because eBay doesn't seem to allow different handling fees for different countries.

eBay really needs to add a rate table for international calculated shipping so that buyers can add handling fees. They also need to add a percentage based handling fee. 

From a legal POV, I could be wrong since I'm not a lawyer or customs broker, but I don't think you can legally say to a buyer "send me x for tariffs". You can say, our shipping includes a handling or administration fee to cover the increased costs of shipping your order, but you're not a customs broker who is registered with the USA to collect and remit tariffs, so just to be safe I would avoid saying anything that might be views as the buyer is paying you tariffs.

The other thing to consider, is that eBay is unlikely to side with you in the long run if you cancel multiple orders because buyers don't want to send you additional fees. Even if you write in your listing "the buyer will have to send us an additional payment to produce a DDP code with Zonos", eBay isn't going to look at that and remove defects related to cancelling transactions. 

The big thing eBay needs to do is separate US and International shipping in business policies, but I get the impression that they don't have incentive to make direct shipping easy because they might need as many people as possible to adopt the eIS program for it to be viable. 

[dhslk]

Your solution of adding the tariff amount to the shipping cost sounds reasonable. HOWEVER, to get a ZONOS quote on each item, then add it to the shipping cost, is onerously time consuming. This should be AUTOMATED via ebay. Especially since the tariffs change on a whim so often. I could potentially take days and days to revise each listing only to have it change the next day. It is unworkable. It is also not possible to do it on only select listings (can't block the USA and unblock for a specific item if a buyer is interested).

[sapphyres-designer-jewellery]

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@dhslk wrote:

This is so frustrating. I have $700 of potential sales to the USA just today with buyers willing to pay tariffs (or, at least, to wait for a tariff 'bill' to see if they wish to buy still. BUT THERE IS NO MECHANISM for charging them, even if they want to pay.

I'm trying to figure out a work around for them. The Australian one is not, in my opinion, a good one, even just from the tax perspective (it will appear as income, when it is just tax collection).

I am leery to work with Zonos, but there is no reason that ebay can't work with it on their platform. This seems to be a much fairer solution than foisting it off on Canada Post (when it should be the US Customs/USPS's job).

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You have a point (about it appearing as income because it's an "ebay sale"), but you can apply the tariff paid against that income giving a net income of zero.

I think it's not a good solution for other reasons, namely it's likely against eBay policy. There are all sorts of polices regarding not selling a physical goods as part of the listing, but someone else will have to dig up that policy.

C.

[mrdutch1001]

and what are Canadian sellers going to do IF that proposed Tariff increase includes ALL goods from Canada?

[sapphyres-designer-jewellery]

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@ilikehockeyjerseys wrote:

From a legal POV, I could be wrong since I'm not a lawyer or customs broker, but I don't think you can legally say to a buyer "send me x for tariffs". You can say, our shipping includes a handling or administration fee to cover the increased costs of shipping your order, but you're not a customs broker who is registered with the USA to collect and remit tariffs, so just to be safe I would avoid saying anything that might be views as the buyer is paying you tariffs.

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What's being said in the US is that foreign countries (and sellers) are the ones paying the tariffs. So likely although we are not in the US at the time, we are commiting an offense by collecting tariffs from the buyer. My tariffs are built into the price, I'm not really sure that's allowed either because that means the buyer is paying the tariff in the cost of what they're paying. Probably someone at US customs will tell me that I collect money on the buyer and if the tariff is 100% I have to remit everything I received in the sale to CBP to pay the tariff, I can't charge $100 for an item which includes the 100% tariff (meaning I'm remitting 50% of what I received).

It's technical and complicated and I don't like it. I have increased shipping but when I increased it too much sales slowed down and people complained about high shipping prices, so I lowered my shipping a little bit to try and encourage people to buy. 

I will adjust prices on some things, but have removed things for right now (to relist later) rather than just change prices of things that are currently listed.

C.

[sapphyres-designer-jewellery]

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@dhslk wrote:

Your solution of adding the tariff amount to the shipping cost sounds reasonable. HOWEVER, to get a ZONOS quote on each item, then add it to the shipping cost, is onerously time consuming. This should be AUTOMATED via ebay. Especially since the tariffs change on a whim so often. I could potentially take days and days to revise each listing only to have it change the next day. It is unworkable. It is also not possible to do it on only select listings (can't block the USA and unblock for a specific item if a buyer is interested).

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I'm finding it to be a pita to be listing all the different items in the package and figure out the tariffs (as part of the item cost) on each thing. When someone buys 10 things from different places I spend an hour on making an invoice and packing the order (instead of 15 minutes to assemble and pack everything).

If you're making lots and lots of sales, I get that this is not a good solution. If you're like me and making 2 sales a day tops, then maybe you have to do a little bit of work to get your order out that you didn't have to do before Aug 29.

I'm not spending any more time shipping than before, but I am shipping 25% as much stuff as before.

I'd say if you have a $700 item it's worth the effort even though it's not so straight forward to take care of sorting out tariffs.

C.

[dhslk]

Yes, it's worth the effort, but how the heck do I do it? That's why I'm posting here, for possible solutions.

[sapphyres-designer-jewellery]

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@dhslk wrote:

Yes, it's worth the effort, but how the heck do I do it? That's why I'm posting here, for possible solutions.

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I've included it in the price of the item... I also previously raised shipping to cover tariffs on smaller priced goods (but that got pushback by buyers, seems they don't mind the price of the item going up, but don't want to pay more in shipping. Must be a psychological thing).

That's what I've done, and then I posted about the Australian seller who made a listing for tariffs (although I'm not sure I can recommend that, it's probably against eBay policy, I just don't know for sure).

Once the buyer purchases, you can exchange contact info and send an invoice through Paypal.

Sorry, I wish I had better suggestions, but the US really does not want us collecting tariffs from their residents, which is making it difficult to solve your problem.

C.

[dhslk]

Thanks for your responses. I am not sure about raising the price of the item because the tariff is due on that inflated price.

[sapphyres-designer-jewellery]

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@dhslk wrote:

Thanks for your responses. I am not sure about raising the price of the item because the tariff is due on that inflated price.

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I understand what you're saying, and you are correct.

I have created an invoice where I input what they paid for the item and it reverse calculates the tariff as part of what was paid, and I use the value with the tariff deducted for the declaration. (But the important thing is to have an invoice to corroborate).

I haven't had any problems with this so far.

C.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

I agree that it should be automated, but this isn't really much different than figuring out shipping for each item. 

People have done that for years with with building in shipping rates to items with free shipping or with flat rates. 

The postal service only charges the "Trump" tariffs. So it is an additional layer of work that needs to be done when setting up the listing, but it isn't too complicated. https://www.tradecomplianceresourcehub.com/2025/10/22/trump-2-0-tariff-tracker/

Canada Post Tracked Packet also goes by weight, and is the same cost regardless of where it goes to the USA, so it's easy to figure out without needing calculated rates. 

You're not going to get it to be 100 percent perfect in terms of charging the buyer what Zonos charges you down to the exact penny, but that has always been the case with flat rate shipping.