The Recipe for Disaster: Why the Industry’s Current De Minimis Fixes Don’t Work

I’ll be blunt: the industry response to the de minimis shake-up was a fiasco. When the U.S. ended the $800 de minimis allowance in 2025, every low-value parcel started needing full customs treatment and duty. Shipments jammed. Costs spiked. Merchants and carriers scrambled.

“In the rush to respond, the industry landed on an approach that hasn’t worked for anyone. That is still how it feels. Packages sat in limbo. Shippers invented workarounds that created more work. Consumers paid surprise fees. The system isn’t performing as designed. The whole setup is a recipe for disaster.”

This post explains what happened, why the quick fixes are failing, how this hurts SMBs, and what a smarter, consolidated approach looks like. I’ll also point out where Easyship already solves these pain points without drama.

The End of the $800 Exemption

For years, the $800 threshold let low-value orders enter the U.S. with minimal friction. Then, almost overnight, every parcel needed a full declaration, correct HS codes, and duty payment. That converted a high-throughput pipeline into a bottleneck.

Carriers were flooded with work they weren’t staffed or tooled to handle at parcel scale. Postal networks paused service to the U.S. while they figured out how to collect duties. Couriers piled on brokerage fees. Many merchants watched delivery times stretch from days to weeks. Buyers got new bills they didn’t expect.

This was predictable. You cannot switch millions of daily shipments from light-touch intake to full entries without new systems, data standards, and staffing. Instead of building that foundation, the market improvised.

Scrambling for “Solutions” That Create New Problems

On Day 1 of the post–de minimis era, only two providers could actually remit duties and taxes at scale into the U.S.—a multibillion-dollar trade funneled through two pipes. Within days, more players were added to the list, but the first 24 hours exposed how brittle the setup was.

“You have two providers that can actually remit worldwide into the US — a trade worth billions — and then you have these small players working with posts, creating multiple labels just to ship one parcel.”

Here’s what we saw:

• Service pauses instead of systems. Some posts simply stopped accepting U.S. parcels. That avoided mistakes, but it left merchants stranded and customers angry.
• Bolt-ons at the eleventh hour. Quick partnerships to “collect duties” went live days before the deadline. Integrations failed under load. Instructions changed mid-week.
• Multi-label hacks. One parcel, two labels, two tracking numbers, maybe two handlers. More steps, more chances to misroute or double-charge.
• Guesswork at checkout. Stores charged an estimate, couriers charged something else, and brokers sent their own fees later. “There’s no link between what sellers are charged for tax and duty, and what customers are charged. You end up paying three different parties and no one knows who’s accountable.”
• Over-rotation to express. With posts in flux, SMBs defaulted to integrators that could pre-collect duties. Prices jumped. Capacity didn’t. Delays followed.

All of this adds friction without fixing the core issue: fragmented data and payment flows between cart, carrier, and customs.

Fulfillment Signals: Read Them Carefully

Amazon’s move to offer FBA services to other platforms like Shein, Shopify, and Walmart says something simple: warehouse demand is not what it was. Even the largest players are rationalizing space and selling capacity. That should not scare you. It is a reminder to be targeted with inventory placement.

Our view is unchanged: avoid oversized warehouse bets. Place stock where it lowers landed cost and cuts delivery time, not where the logo is familiar. Easyship’s approach to fulfillment is focused, not a land-grab.

SMBs Caught in the Crossfire

Small brands built on cross-border parcels felt the hit first.

• Operational drag. Owners became part-time customs clerks. Every SKU needed a correct HS code, origin, and tax logic.
• Customer confusion. Unexpected delivery-time fees wrecked trust. Carts were abandoned. Returns increased.
• Margin compression. Brokerage minimums, handling fees, and tariffs erased profits on lower-price items.
• Stop-ship decisions. Many paused U.S. orders rather than risk late deliveries and angry customers.

Merchants using Easyship had an easier path. They could switch affected lanes to Delivered Duty Paid, show landed costs in checkout, and file the right data automatically. That doesn’t make duties disappear, but it does remove surprises and manual rework.

Opportunity Hiding in Complexity

The biggest opportunity and risk is the same: complexity. Prices will rise in places, yet the main driver of cross-border purchases is often assortment, not price. Tariffs create artificial scarcity. Merchants who learn the rules, price transparently, and keep stock where it matters will win share while others hesitate.

A Smarter Path Forward

De minimis ended. Chaos does not have to be permanent. The fix is not more labels or more middlemen. The fix is a single connected workflow from checkout to clearance:

1. Calculate landed cost up front. Use HS code, origin, value, and destination rules at checkout. Show the buyer the full amount.
2. Collect once, remit once. Charge duties and taxes at purchase to the right party, then remit through a controlled channel. No duplicate billing.
3. Transmit clean data. Send accurate digital customs data with the shipment. Avoid manual keying and paper forms.
4. Consolidate wisely. Import inventory in bulk to U.S. or Canadian facilities for domestic or near-border fulfillment, or use compliant parcel consolidation with pre-advice for direct-to-consumer.
5. Keep one source of truth. Orders, fees, labels, and filings live in one system, not across plugins and spreadsheets.

This is the Easyship way. One platform for cross-border shipping with duty and tax calculation, DDP and DDU flows, digital customs documents, and carrier selection tied together. When rules change, software updates once. Merchants do not reinvent their stack.

What Lasting Change Looks Like

The de minimis reset is a structural shift in how cross-border commerce operates. Carriers, brokers, and platforms can no longer act in silos. Real efficiency will come from shared data, clear payment flows, and smarter positioning of inventory.

Three trends are already taking shape:

• Data-led logistics. Customs won’t scale on manual entries and CSV uploads. The next era of compliance will be built on standardized digital filings, pre-clearance APIs, and carrier integrations that move data once and not ten times.
• Regionalized fulfillment. Brands are rethinking where stock lives. Moving inventory closer to end customers — in Canada, Mexico, or inside free-trade zones — cuts both duty exposure and delivery times. This is how small merchants start playing the same game as enterprise retailers.
• Transparent pricing. Surprise fees have become a dealbreaker. Clear landed-cost checkouts are now a trust signal, not a luxury. Merchants that can show total cost upfront will convert higher and refund less.

At Easyship, we see this evolution daily. Compliance is now infrastructure rather than paperwork, and the outlook must change accordingly. The merchants who invest in connected data and transparent pricing will turn regulatory friction into competitive advantage.

Founder’s Take

The industry reached for patches. We need structure. That means shared standards, predictable payment flows, and automation that removes guesswork. The prize is simple: faster deliveries, fewer surprises, and margins that make sense again.

Regulatory change can be a chance to clean up old habits. If we align checkout, labeling, data transmission, and remittance, cross-border can feel as smooth as domestic. Platforms like Easyship already operate this way. It’s time the rest of the stack caught up.