Possible Decision On Tariffs Friday

[codacloset]

The Supreme Court will be making decisions on a number of cases on Friday at 10 AM ET. One of the cases that could be deciced is the tariff case. I've done some reading and from what I gather it will be very difficult for The Orange Man to recreate tariffs to override the de minimis agan if the tariffs are overturned. We could very well see sweeping tariffs levied against numerous countries and against different commodities, but it would be difficult to override the de minimis again unless some other emergency situation was fabricated (which it could be).

How much does everyone estimate the tariffs have hurt their sales? I would say my overall sales are down about 60-75%, but I started transitioning into selling items of higher value late last spring before the de minimis ended. I was previously selling a higher volume of lower price items (video games and inexpensive clothing), so it's difficult for me to compare because of how drastically I've changed what I'm selling.

Part of the thing that's been difficult is the idea of paying tariffs for American buyers. Even if I have found DDP solutions so buyers won't be charged anything additional upon delivery, it's hard to explain to someone that they won't pay duties when eBay are telling them they will. My sales for video games to the US basically died back in April last year when the Chinese de minimis ended. It didn't even make sense because all of the discs for North American games I sell are manufactured in the US or Mexico and all of the discs for the Japanese games are made in Japan. It's been an awful combination of American buyers' lack of general understanding of custom rules and regulations and eBay's vague/somewhat innacurate warning messages that are shown to buyers at checkout that were written by someone in San Jose who has no understanding about the rules. 

[flipistics]

For me, I think it only cost me about 25%. I think the Canada Post strikes and threats of labour issues actually hurt me more. The issue with the de minimis is that he'd likely pivot to applying a hefty "package processing fee" which could be much worse.

[mrdutch1001]

"How much does everyone estimate the tariffs have hurt their sales?"

For myself, the tariffs have hurt my sales on eBay VERY little! My eBay sales in general had already dwindled to the point where eBay is no longer a viable selling site for my items and by sping of 2025 I had already started to increase my presence on my other selling site where in mid-August I also stopped shipping to the USA. That selling site has done well with Canada only customers. As for eBay going forward, I will be listing a minimal amount here on an irregular basis...

[sapphyres-designer-jewellery]

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@codacloset wrote:

Part of the thing that's been difficult is the idea of paying tariffs for American buyers. Even if I have found DDP solutions so buyers won't be charged anything additional upon delivery, it's hard to explain to someone that they won't pay duties when eBay are telling them they will. My sales for video games to the US basically died back in April last year when the Chinese de minimis ended. It didn't even make sense because all of the discs for North American games I sell are manufactured in the US or Mexico and all of the discs for the Japanese games are made in Japan. It's been an awful combination of American buyers' lack of general understanding of custom rules and regulations and eBay's vague/somewhat innacurate warning messages that are shown to buyers at checkout that were written by someone in San Jose who has no understanding about the rules. 

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I use DDP shipping, and tried to advertise as such in the listing and the title of the listing (by putting tariffs included in the title, and explaining how I ship DDP so that nothing is owed on delivery). And then after all that effort, eBay is still telling buyers that tariffs are owed on delivery of their item. I've gotten three messages in three days from buyers who are either upset because eBay says there's tariffs (when I say there isn't), or are questioning if there are tariffs due when their parcel is delivered.

I'd probably sell a lot more and things would be normal if eBay wasn't contradicting me every time they look at a listing.

C.

[transtraders]

I wouldn't be surprised the orange dingo is creating all these wars around the world just so he can declare his tarriffs are "war measures" to keep them in place.

[byto253]

Nothing like being knee-capped! 

[rdemaree]

Statistically speaking my sales were down at least by around 30% all things considered vs 2024

This is after running a different sale every month, filling my shop with entry level items, optimising my photos/ descriptions, adding a CUSMA disclaimer to ever listing etc. Literally everything that you can think of that a business would do to shore up business I have done and STILL saw nearly a 1/3 drop in sales. 

The optics are what are hurting sales right now. The average person doesnt understand the nuances of trade policies. All they hear from the "president" is *international countries are terrible and if you buy from them you will pay a bigly hugely bestly kingly tariff!!!!* which isnt true in my case since most of my products are covered by CUSMA and reigstered.  So much for the GOP being for the free market and lower taxes tho! Its a hidden regressive tax on the middle and lower class to justfiy tax cuts for the wealthy. That and obliterating social services.

Ebay made sure to help remedy the situation by misinforming our customers with a big blue banner telling customers they WILL have to pay tariffs (regardless), offer us the wonderful X3 more expensive and X3 slower EIS shipping program and then they also did us the favor of raising promotional listings by a mandatory 2% if you use it with no added benefit to sellers. 

Its been awesome!

*Sarcasm*

We need the supreme court to strike down the tariffs (very likely) which is good optics for CUSMA sellers and will allow us all to sell foreign goods into the USA again without big fees.

We also need ebay to really recognize how bad things are right now and to do more to help sellers, which they are currently doing the opposite of right now. (promotional listing price hike, EIS, tariff warning etc.) Ebays actions right now are primarily for the benefit of ebay not sellers. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@rdemaree wrote:

Statistically speaking my sales were down at least by around 30% all things considered vs 2024

This is after running a different sale every month, filling my shop with entry level items, optimising my photos/ descriptions, adding a CUSMA disclaimer to ever listing etc. Literally everything that you can think of that a business would do to shore up business I have done and STILL saw nearly a 1/3 drop in sales. 

The optics are what are hurting sales right now. The average person doesnt understand the nuances of trade policies. All they hear from the "president" is *international countries are terrible and if you buy from them you will pay a bigly hugely bestly kingly tariff!!!!* which isnt true in my case since most of my products are covered by CUSMA and reigstered.  So much for the GOP being for the free market and lower taxes tho! Its a hidden regressive tax on the middle and lower class to justfiy tax cuts for the wealthy. That and obliterating social services.

Ebay made sure to help remedy the situation by misinforming our customers with a big blue banner telling customers they WILL have to pay tariffs (regardless), offer us the wonderful X3 more expensive and X3 slower EIS shipping program and then they also did us the favor of raising promotional listings by a mandatory 2% if you use it with no added benefit to sellers. 

Its been awesome!

*Sarcasm*

We need the supreme court to strike down the tariffs (very likely) which is good optics for CUSMA sellers and will allow us all to sell foreign goods into the USA again without big fees.

We also need ebay to really recognize how bad things are right now and to do more to help sellers, which they are currently doing the opposite of right now. (promotional listing price hike, EIS, tariff warning etc.) Ebays actions right now are primarily for the benefit of ebay not sellers. 

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@rdemaree 

@byto253 

Problem being even IF  they decide NOT in Trump's favour it will automagically get appealed and re-appealed until the cows come home. Best "plausible" (trying to be hopefully optimistic) would be a full stop on tariffs and bringing back de minimus until they get their ducks in row. Will this happen? ...Anyone's guess...Stay tuned to this station for further tariff alerts!!

While you are waiting in suspense for a verdict: More fun facts on alerts and/or hopefully a bit of levity to try to brighten your day/night to take your mind off this neverending insanity.

• "Alert fatigue: when your brain starts treating every 'important notification' like a Nigerian prince email."
• "The only thing my calendar alert warns me about is the next thing I'll forget." 
• "My life is a series of urgent alerts for things that absolutely aren't urgent."
• "If 'urgent' was a sound, my phone would be a symphony of panicked squeaks."
• "Alert: You're breathing. Alert: The sun is still up. Alert: You're still procrastinating." (I was thinking about sending this post either tomorrow or the next day.)
• "Just another notification screaming into the abyss."

And last but not least.

• "Be alert. The world needs more lerts" 
• 💤

[flipistics]

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@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:

Problem being even IF  they decide NOT in Trump's favour it will automagically get appealed and re-appealed until the cows come home. Best "plausible" (trying to be hopefully optimistic) would be a full stop on tariffs and bringing back de minimus until they get their ducks in row. Will this happen? ...Anyone's guess...Stay tuned to this station for further tariff alerts!!💤

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Or Trump may simply ignore it and dare anyone to stop him. Who knows what would happen in that scenario.

[recped]

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@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:

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@rdemaree wrote:

Statistically speaking my sales were down at least by around 30% all things considered vs 2024

This is after running a different sale every month, filling my shop with entry level items, optimising my photos/ descriptions, adding a CUSMA disclaimer to ever listing etc. Literally everything that you can think of that a business would do to shore up business I have done and STILL saw nearly a 1/3 drop in sales. 

The optics are what are hurting sales right now. The average person doesnt understand the nuances of trade policies. All they hear from the "president" is *international countries are terrible and if you buy from them you will pay a bigly hugely bestly kingly tariff!!!!* which isnt true in my case since most of my products are covered by CUSMA and reigstered.  So much for the GOP being for the free market and lower taxes tho! Its a hidden regressive tax on the middle and lower class to justfiy tax cuts for the wealthy. That and obliterating social services.

Ebay made sure to help remedy the situation by misinforming our customers with a big blue banner telling customers they WILL have to pay tariffs (regardless), offer us the wonderful X3 more expensive and X3 slower EIS shipping program and then they also did us the favor of raising promotional listings by a mandatory 2% if you use it with no added benefit to sellers. 

Its been awesome!

*Sarcasm*

We need the supreme court to strike down the tariffs (very likely) which is good optics for CUSMA sellers and will allow us all to sell foreign goods into the USA again without big fees.

We also need ebay to really recognize how bad things are right now and to do more to help sellers, which they are currently doing the opposite of right now. (promotional listing price hike, EIS, tariff warning etc.) Ebays actions right now are primarily for the benefit of ebay not sellers. 

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@rdemaree 

@byto253 

Problem being even IF  they decide NOT in Trump's favour it will automagically get appealed and re-appealed until the cows come home. 💤

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There is no possibility of appeal when it comes to the Supreme Court "the Highest Court In The Land".

That said, Trump can just use a different justification for the tariffs and start the process all over again. There have been some suggestions that these options are ready to go with Executive Orders prepared and only needing Trumps scribble.

One thing I have not found any reliable information about is the De Minimis exemption and if it will be affected by the upcoming SCOTUS decision. I have seen some suggestions that it could go back to $800.

[byto253]

I don't see the de minimus being brought back.  That has been in the cross hairs of several administrations.  If the emergency power tariffs were over-turned I would think that it would end up reverting to the situation of the de minimus still being gone and the normal duty schedule coming into effect.   I do not know the ins and outs but possibly the original 2 year timing for the de minimus being ended would come back since that was in a properly authorized bill.  

[fergua3]

IF the tariffs are overturned, and that's a big if, i'm of the opinion that SCOTUS is firmly in Trump's back pocket now (we'll know soon), then as stated above he has claimed several work arounds to this important 'national security' requirement for tariffs.  If all else fails he will just defy SCOTUS....what are they, or anyone else going to do about it?

I would not count on any positive changes coming from the US for a very, very long time.

[byto253]

For sure.  There may be a temporary roll back in some areas, not sector specific either.  And it will be messy.  It could give cover/excuse for them to drop some tariffs they won't right now because that would be voluntarily backtracking.   Politics -> power + the irrational. 

[recped]

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@byto253 wrote:

I don't see the de minimus being brought back.  That has been in the cross hairs of several administrations.  

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Which administrations are you talking about?

Here is some history about Di Minimis in the USA:

https://customscity.com/from-past-to-present-a-historical-overview-of-section-321-and-its-influence-...

In the 95 years that the Di Minimis exemption has existed in the USA it has never been lowered (until Trump) and has been increased many times by many administrations.

[fergua3]

No ruling by the Supreme Court on Friday.  No big surprise there......they're still trying to figure out how they can spin a ruling in their Lord Trump's favour.

[4biddingstuff]

Yes,  it's been a hard pivot with these tariffs and de - minimus cancelled.    I weight it the same way the Liberal government has attacked Alberta and set boundaries on how they should produce and sell their oil and gas.

We have governments on both sides of the border making things harder for sellers.  We love to tell the USA on how it should operate but we can't even get our Provinces to work together to make Canada better. 

Another poster mentioned that de-minimus was going to be reviewed within 2 years and could have been cancelled or extended; we don't know.

As for the history that other poster mentioned:

"Under the Tariff Act of 1930, almost every product imported into the United States was subjected to customs and duty. This resulted in unnecessary inconvenience to customs officials for too little revenue.

In 1938, Congress developed the De Minimis rule, which refers to something too minor or trivial to merit consideration."

We didn't expect to go back to the future.  Making trade harder, making customs harder and the movement of goods of any value take much longer.

You cannot spin back tariffs paid or de-minimus but I would like to see the Supreme Court say the tariffs and de-minimus cancellation must have an end date; send it back for review for any further tariff/de minimus updates and have it go back to the House and Senate for final say.

We have the Fed and Bank of Canada setting interest rates based on economics, they can do the same for de minimus and tariffs.  Isn't it great how we have all these government bodies controlling everything.  yeah..