The global tide of small parcel taxation has sudden, and surviving sellers are quietly doing this

"Every day I wake up, there are new changes in cross-border policies."

Last week, the proprietress of a Guangzhou garment company going overseas complained helplessly in the circle of friends. And this is the common psychological portrayal of countless cross-border businesses since the beginning of this year.

Since the Sino-US tariff issue intensified in April this year, the hearts of cross-border sellers have been "pinched". Although the 145% tariff on China has been significantly reduced, the tariff on small packages under $800 is still maintained at 54%, which brings huge cost pressure to many sellers with low prices as their core advantage.

And just as a large number of sellers and platforms represented by Temu and Shein are turning their attention to Europe and other regions, hoping to open up a second market and continue to stage the miracle of "Chinese cross-border",Countries have also recently introduced or discussed formulating tax policies on small parcels.

When Vietnam's duty-free threshold collapsed from 1 million VND, when the EU's 2 euro handling fee proposal surfaced, and when Japan was brewing a tax on packages under 10,000 yen -A "tariff closure" for China's cross-border small parcels has quietly taken shape around the world.The once unimpeded direct mail channel for small parcels is being intercepted layer by layer by the high walls built by various countries.

The latest small parcel tax policy changes

As we mentioned in the previous article(Click on the blue word to jump to read the original article), after Trump announced this year that he would cancel the T86 customs clearance tariff policy,Europe, fearing that it will become a "pick-up" for the US market, has put a small parcel tax policy on the agenda.

The European Commission proposes member countriesThe duty-free policy for imported parcels below 150 euros will be cancelled, and it is proposed to levy a tax of 2 euros per order for direct mail parcels and 0.5 euros per single handling fee for warehouse parcels.At present, the French Minister of the Budget, Amelie de Montchalin, has openly accepted the proposal,saidFrance will start imposing a fixed fee on imported small parcels as soon as 2026.

Source: Radio France Internationale

British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Rivers said in late April this year,The UK authorities are also considering ending the duty-free policy for low-priced goodsto protect the competitiveness of local retailers and curb the competitiveness of overseas sellers on online platforms.

Coincidentally, Canada, which is also worried about becoming a "pass-through market", held a meeting of G7 finance ministers on May 20 local time, includingG7 countries, including Canada, have begun to discuss imposing tariffs on low-value goods exported from Chinato curb the "oversupply from China".

On the other hand, Japan's Ministry of Finance is also considering revising the current tax policy on low-priced goods. It is reported thatJapan proposes to impose a consumption tax on low-cost imported goods priced at or below 10,000 yen (US$64).Goods in this price band are also currently exempt from taxes and duties.

In the past 2024, Japan imported more than 169 million boxes of goods priced at less than 10,000 yen, worth 425.8 billion yen, almost fivefold compared to 2020. Platforms such as Temu and Shein have taken advantage of the duty-free policy to vigorously promote the local sales of low-priced goods.

Source: Japanese media reports

In addition, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry recently submitted a submission to the Ministry of Finance,It is proposed to implement a comprehensive import tax policy for imported e-commerce business goods, and cancel tax exemption and tax reduction preferences。 At the beginning of this year, the VAT exemption policy for imported goods with a value of less than 1 million VND (equivalent to 288 yuan) sent by express delivery has been exempted, and a uniform tax rate of up to 10% has been levied.

Now, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry will once again propose to adjust the tax policy and impose a uniform amount of tax on imported goods, regardless of the value of the goods. The move is also to protect the level playing field for local Vietnamese businesses.

Source: cafef.vn

As more and more countries begin to formulate and discuss taxation policies,The global small parcel taxation tide has changed from "wolf" to "knife neck".

Summary of recent policy developments:

United States: T86 customs clearance discount is cancelled, and the tax rate on goods shipped below $800 is adjusted to 54%
European Union: It is proposed to impose a handling fee of 2 euros on parcels below 150 euros, which will be implemented in France as early as 2026, and the United Kingdom will consider ending the tax exemption for small parcels
Vietnam: Cancel the tax exemption for parcels under 1 million VND (about 288 yuan), and increase the VAT rate to a maximum of 10%
Japan: It is planned to cancel the excise tax exemption for 10,000 yen (about 64 US dollars) parcels, and the platform payment mechanism will be strengthened
G7 group: Canada promotes the proposed tariffs on low-priced Chinese goods, pointing to "overcapacity"

When the industry reshuffle is underway

Under the tide of tightening tariff policies for small parcels in various countries, the low-price dumping model on which a large number of merchants on the Temu and SHEIN platforms rely for survival is facing collapse, and the first of these is still the sameDomestic white label supply chain and pseudo-fast fashion brands.

Merchants without independent brands who are caught in the "cost-low price" spiral are in the wave of global policy fluctuations"There is no room for price reduction, and there is no possibility of price increase".Profit margins are seriously eaten up by compliance costs, and they are becoming more and more passive.

In contrast,Brand sellers are less sensitive to small parcel tariffs.

Taking the United States as an example, after a designer brand added tariff increases to the pricing of silk shirts, the conversion rate only decreased by 5% while the unit price increased by 19% through the concept positioning of "Italian designer manuscripts and intangible cultural heritage embroidery craft in Suzhou, China".

Similarly, at the beginning of this year, an outdoor sportswear business began to apply a large number of environmentally friendly functional fabrics and ultrasonic process technology to "sell" environmental protection concepts and technical concepts in outdoor sportswear products, so that products have more premium space by increasing the added value of products, so as to have more free pricing power in the face of policy risks and enhance the ability to resist risks.

As the management of a cross-border logistics giant mentioned in an internal letter:"There are only two types of garment companies that can survive in the future: those who control the premium of cultural symbols, or those who have the ability to dispatch production capacity across continents."

In addition to actively deploying overseas production capacity, responding to tariffs through the premium of cultural and technological attributes has undoubtedly become the best way to "bloom" on the tariff wall.When the model of cost advantage no longer applies, now we must make the world pay for Chinese design.

And from this point of view, cross-border clothing enterprisesProduct planning and designIt has undoubtedly become more important.

In recent years, Zhiyi Technology has actively accompanied cross-border clothing enterprises to deal with the "incurable diseases" encountered in going to sea, and passed on the one handApparel big dataProvide cross-border apparel companies with massive and accurate market data as the basis for product selection, gain insight into overseas fashion trends, and help designers select and modify products more efficiently and accurately.

Source: Overseas Exploration

The other side is developmentAI clothing design productsto help cross-border sellersReduce the cost of clothing sample production and commercial auction by more than 95%.Through AIGC functions such as graphic and text models, partial facelifts, and fabric upper bodies, it facilitates the daily work flow of fashion designers and improves the efficiency of facelifts.

Source: FD

At a time when the tariff game has triggered an industry reshuffle, the clothing paradigm revolution from "cost arbitrage" to "value creation" is imminent.

The application of AIGC and big data is bound to become an important force in rewriting the new "rules of the game".

epilogue

The sudden outbreak of the global small parcel taxation tide is launching a Darwinian screening of clothing cross-border enterprises: it will be more and more difficult for merchants who rely too much on the low-price dumping model to do and haveBrand premiumandTechnological moatscompanies have the opportunity to take advantage of the evolution and turn tariff pressures into growth drivers to reshape the value chain.

In the creation and improvement of "design power", big data and AI technology are providing a steady stream of help for apparel companies.

At this moment, all practitioners stand at the crossroads of fate - either sink in the afterglow of the old model or igniteTechnology, branding, complianceIn the shattered picture of globalization, rebuild the "new continent of resilient trade" belonging to Chinese clothing.

- END -

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