I figure once Trump has upset enough Americans, he’ll stop playing games with tariffs against other countries, including Canada. For now, I’ve stopped all shipping to the U.S. until there’s a plan in place where I don’t lose money—especially when items get returned to me.
I’m curious—what are other Canadian sellers doing about this?
For the same reason, I will also stop shipping to the USA from Cyprus. Tindie should do something about this. Ebay has informed customers about the problem that exists.
I don’t believe it’s Tindie’s place to intervene when it comes to customs duties or import tariffs. We’ve already seen what happens on platforms like eBay, where the seller ends up powerless under overly controlling policies. That’s not the direction Tindie should go.
The current tariff situation is a direct result of decisions made by the Trump administration. It’s not a platform issue — it’s a political one. When enough Americans get tired of paying 35% (or more) in extra fees on everyday items, the next election will likely bring change. Until then, we’re stuck with the consequences.
The only workaround right now is using courier services like FedEx or DHL, which handle brokerage themselves — but they charge steep fees for that, on top of the tariffs. And what happens when a customer is notified they owe a significant amount in customs? Many simply refuse the parcel. If the item is returned, the seller eats the cost — and that’s if it gets returned at all.
For small sellers, this isn’t sustainable. But forcing platforms to take on this burden won’t solve the core issue — it’ll just drive more sellers away.
It would be nice to add support for country-specific pricing or percentage-based price adjustments. I can sort of handle it with product-specific shipping rates for the US only, but I have no way to factor tariffs in when product options are selected. It wouldn’t require any additional administration for Tindie, just providing us the option to adjust prices accordingly.
I’m in Australia and they’re planning to open back up to the US soon where tariffs need to be prepaid to a third party.
This is a US only problem and Tindie needs to fix it.
Trump has forced all foreign postal services to collect the US tariffs prior to shipment because the USPS is not capable. Canada Post has opted to use CBP approved Zonos to collect and forward the tariffs. Zonos adds both a fixed fee and an extra 10% of the duties on top. Tindie needs to give us three additional line items for the tariff rate, the percentage collection fee and the fixed collection fee.
Currently, the only workaround is to sell only one product, eliminate all options and fiddle with the shipping rates for the first and subsequent items. That is not a favourable solution.
As of yesterday, eBay Canada has started managing all international shipments. Now, sellers (if enrolled in EBAY International Shipping) simply ship items to the eBay hub, and they handle the rest — including customs, tariffs, and delivery to the buyer.
While this may sound convenient, there’s a major downside: once you opt into eBay’s international shipping program, the shipping costs increase for all orders, not just those going to the U.S. I’m not happy about this change, as it could bring sales to a grinding halt. There must be a better way.
At the moment, when an American buyer purchases one of my items, a $30 product ends up costing them nearly $100 after eBay adds its shipping, brokerage, taxes, and other fees. To make matters worse, eBay even takes a cut of the total cost including tariffs and taxes — which, in my opinion, seems unethical. I won’t know the full extent of this until I receive my monthly invoice, but it doesn’t look promising.
I have only shipped one order to the USA since yesterday.
I don’t know if Tindie is equipped to handle this kind of thing. I am guessing the only way to ship an item to the USA now (if not using EBAY) is to use expensive Fedex or UPS which again will raise the cost of the item, and bring sales to a grinding, screeching halt.
While I agree in principle with your logic, there is something that could be relatively easily added to each Option (and that is the source of the problems for me) and that would be an extra field called “Tariff” that you enter in a value that gets added to any USA orders. If you are a USA seller, then you would have them at $0. If you are fro outside the USA, it would be a bit painful, especially if the percentage changes, but hopefully it will be a one off value per option that gets added to the cost. It’s not hard and really Tindie needs this fixed.
OK, so with no direction of feedback or comment from Tindie Staff, it doesn’t look like they care too much to fix the problem, so here is my solution, in stages:
Tindie worked great, and I can see a VERY easy solution to the problem. I don’t understand why they don’t seem to give a crap? Is it becuase most of their business comes from USA sellers selling to USA customers? If so, then that at least makes sense.
