VIABOX Official Package Forwarding Newsletter

Author: Viabox Team

  • US Tariff Refunds Hit $135 Billion: What It Means for International Shoppers

    US Tariff Refunds Hit $135 Billion: What It Means for International Shoppers

    The $135 billion question: who keeps the tariff refunds?

    In February, the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). In the months since, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) opened a dedicated portal to process returns, and the money has started flowing back. As of September 11, CBP had paid out nearly $135 billion in IEEPA tariff refunds, and more is on the way because the agency is set to launch the ability to process finally liquidated entries next month, according to Supply Chain Dive.

    So who is keeping the cash? A survey from the Atlanta Federal Reserve, conducted in August, found that most firms are holding onto the refunded money. But the Fed also noted that “a nontrivial portion” of refunds is being directed toward customers and employees — a use the researchers described as surprising relative to standard economic models.

    What major retailers are doing with the money

    The Atlanta Fed survey and company statements paint a mixed picture. Here is the range of responses Supply Chain Dive reported:

    • Lowering prices: Walmart and BJ’s Wholesale Club have explicitly stated they are using tariff refunds to reduce prices for shoppers. Burlington is leveraging the funds to “deliver sharper values.”
    • Offsetting costs: Lowe’s and The Home Depot are using the refunds to absorb rising supply-chain costs rather than passing savings to customers.
    • Employee bonuses: Williams-Sonoma is flowing some recouped funds back to employees, including the teams that handled the refund process.
    • Keeping it all: Nintendo publicly stated that customers are not entitled to tariff refund benefits, though it later ran a “customer appreciation sale” it credited, in part, to the returns.

    On the operational side, the Atlanta Fed found that nearly 70 percent of firms are handling the IEEPA refund process with internal staff, while roughly 22 percent brought in a third-party provider. A slim minority — including American Eagle Outfitters and The Children’s Place — sold a portion of their refund rights to shore up cash reserves.

    Why this matters if you buy from US stores and ship abroad

    If you shop US retailers — whether for personal use or for a small resale operation — tariffs were quietly embedded in the cost of every import entry. For a package crossing into the US for a US-based seller to restock, or for a small business pulling inventory from a US warehouse, those levies raised the landed cost of goods. Now that the legal basis for those specific tariffs has been struck down and billions are flowing back, two things shift in your favor.

    First, retailers that pass refunds into lower shelf prices mean the base cost of the items you order drops. Even a modest 5 to 10 percent reduction on a $40 gadget or a $120 pair of shoes compounds across a consolidation shipment. Second, the customs landscape is in a transitional phase. CBP is still working through finally liquidated entries, and procedures are being updated. For small importers and resellers, that means documentation and entry processes may still be evolving, which can affect processing times and the likelihood of holds at the border.

    The practical takeaway: if you source from US stores, the tariff layer that inflated your costs over the past year is now legally gone and financially reversing. You do not need to wait for retailers to advertise a price drop — the underlying duty that fed into those prices is no longer in effect.

    For buyers consolidating multiple US store orders into a single international shipment, keeping an eye on whether your preferred retailer has actually adjusted prices is worth doing. A quick check on your usual cart total before you commit to a shipping quote can reveal whether the refund wave has reached your specific product category. And if you are a small reseller pulling inventory through a US address, the transitional customs environment is a good reason to confirm your broker or forwarding partner is using the latest entry procedures, since CBP is still rolling out new processing capabilities.

    Viabox, for example, handles the receiving, consolidation, and international forwarding side of that equation — you shop any US store, packages arrive at a real US address, and the shipment is forwarded to your country once you are ready, with no monthly fees. It is one less variable to manage while the tariff and customs landscape is still settling.

    What to watch in the coming weeks

    CBP is expected to begin processing finally liquidated entries next month, which will unlock another wave of refunds for importers whose entries were still open. The Atlanta Fed noted that the full economic ripple of $135 billion-plus in returned duties will not show up in retail pricing overnight. But the direction is set: the tariff layer is being unwound, and the retailers with the most to lose from higher prices are the ones most likely to move first.

    For international shoppers and small resellers, that is a quiet but real cost reduction — one that does not require a coupon code, just a recalculated cart before you hit the shipping quote.

    If you are ready to take advantage of the current US retail pricing and forward your packages internationally without a membership fee, Viabox can set you up with a US shipping address in minutes. Shop, consolidate, and ship on your schedule.

    Ready to put your US address to work? Log in to your Viabox dashboard to manage shipments and consolidate packages — or create your free US address in minutes.

    Go to my Viabox dashboard →

  • FedEx Hikes Cross-Border Parcel Fees 50% Ahead of Peak Season — What It Means for Your US Orders

    What FedEx Just Announced

    FedEx has rolled out new demand surcharges that apply to parcel shipments crossing borders, with the most significant hits landing on exports to Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand. According to an analysis published by Supply Chain Dive on September 18, those destinations will see a roughly uniform 50% increase in per-pound charges compared to the prior rate card. The surcharges are set to take effect just as shippers ramp up for the peak holiday season, piling another layer of cost pressure on top of tariffs and fuel adjustments.

    The same Supply Chain Dive report notes that the lower tier of surcharges applies to economy services while the higher tier hits express and priority products. For a concrete example, ShipScience calculated that a 40-pound priority shipment originating in China would see a $22.40 increase in demand fees before any fuel surcharge is added. That is not a trivial bump when you are forwarding a box of electronics, clothing, or home goods from a US retailer to a home in Dubai, Mexico City, or London.

    Why This Is Hitting Now

    FedEx is not acting in a vacuum. The company pointed to a 5% year-over-year rise in average daily international export volume during the quarter that ended May 31, per Supply Chain Dive. Demand for cross-border parcel movement is climbing as more consumers shop US stores online and more small resellers source inventory domestically. Carriers respond to that volume by tightening yields, and peak season is the natural window to do it.

    This is not the first time. As Supply Chain Dive noted, last year FedEx instituted a temporary fee on parcel shipments from China, Hong Kong, and the Philippines entering the US, at a time when importers were rushing to move inventory ahead of new tariffs and the now-defunct de minimis exemption. The pattern is familiar: regulatory shifts and tariff uncertainty concentrate volume, and carriers adjust pricing to match.

    What This Means if You Buy from US Stores and Ship Abroad

    If you are in the Gulf, Mexico, Brazil, Spain, or Vietnam and you order from American retailers, the delivery leg out of the US is getting more expensive. Concretely, here is what changes:

    • Per-pound costs rise. A 20-pound package that previously cost $X in carrier fees may now carry an additional surcharge that, on express services, approaches a 50% uplift on the demand-fee component alone.
    • Express vs. economy matters more. Because the higher surcharge tier applies to express and priority products, choosing a slower economy option can meaningfully reduce your landed cost.
    • Peak-season timing compounds the hit. These fees layer on top of existing fuel surcharges, dimensional-weight pricing, and any customs or duties your destination country imposes. Budget for the total, not just the base rate.
    • De minimis and tariff shifts add variables. The de minimis exemption in the US has been eliminated, and tariff schedules continue to change. Packages that previously cleared without duty may now trigger charges, adding another line item on your invoice.

    How to Keep Your Forwarding Costs in Check

    The most practical step is to model your shipment before you commit to a service level. ShipScience recommends that affected shippers update their origin-and-service mappings, model exposure by chargeable weight, and confirm country-level changes directly with the carrier. In practice, that means comparing a FedEx International Economy rate against a FedEx International Priority rate for your specific lane and weight before checking out at the US store.

    Consolidation also helps. If you are buying from two or three US retailers in the same two-week window, combining those items into one box before it leaves the US avoids paying the per-shipment surcharge multiple times. A single 30-pound consolidated package will almost always cost less to forward than three separate 10-pound parcels, even after accounting for dimensional-weight adjustments.

    For shoppers and small resellers who do not have a logistics team to negotiate carrier rates or model lane-by-lane exposure, a US-based forwarding service can absorb that complexity. Viabox, for example, provides a real US shipping address where you can collect packages from any American store, consolidate them if you wish, and forward them on a single shipment to your country. There is no monthly fee — you pay only when you actually ship, which keeps your cost proportional to what you buy rather than to a flat subscription. That structure is especially useful during peak season, when per-shipment surcharges make it more important to get the box count right.

    Bottom Line

    The FedEx surcharge is one more data point in a broader trend: cross-border parcel shipping out of the US is getting pricier, faster, and more complex. The carriers are citing volume; the shippers are paying for it. The practical response is the same whether you are ordering a single hoodie in Riyadh or a pallet of gadgets for a small shop in Guadalajara — consolidate, pick the right service tier, and confirm your destination’s duty treatment before the package leaves the warehouse. The fees are now, but they are not negotiable. Plan around them.

    If you want a straightforward US address to send your next order to and a team that handles the consolidation and international leg without a monthly commitment, Viabox is built for exactly that. Get a US address and a shipping quote in a few minutes — no subscription, no commitment until you ship.

    Ready to put your US address to work? Log in to your Viabox dashboard to manage shipments and consolidate packages — or create your free US address in minutes.

    Go to my Viabox dashboard →

  • Schiphol Warns Ecommerce Parcels Are Overwhelming Air Cargo Handling

    What Dutch air cargo handlers are flagging

    According to The Loadstar, Air Cargo Netherlands (ACN) has formally pressed IATA to accelerate the development of a dedicated ecommerce handling code, arguing that the current pace of parcel growth is pushing cargo operations at Amsterdam Schiphol to their physical limits. In a paper shared with The Loadstar, ACN described the situation in blunt terms: what began as a steady stream of parcels has grown into what they called “an avalanche of parcels, pushing first-line handling to its physical limits.”

    ACN is not a fringe player. It represents the air cargo handlers who move freight through one of Europe’s busiest international hubs. Their warning carries weight because the problems they describe are operational, not hypothetical. Handlers are reporting that ecommerce shipments arrive in grey poly-mailers or loosely packed cartons, with pallets sometimes containing boxes that have collapsed under the weight of cargo stacked above them. Weight indicators are frequently missing, and because these small, variable-sized parcels cannot be stacked properly, counting items on a pallet becomes “exceedingly difficult,” per ACN’s language in the paper published by The Loadstar.

    Why loose parcels are a different animal for airport crews

    Traditional air freight moves in large, uniform, consolidated units. A pallet of 40 identical cartons is easy to count, stack, scan, and load. Ecommerce parcels, by contrast, arrive as hundreds of different-sized bags and boxes, often with handwritten or unclear labels, no standard dimensions, and no compatibility with the automated sorting systems built for larger freight units.

    ACN told The Loadstar that these small, variable parcels are “incompatible with existing automated systems, which are specifically designed for large, consolidated freight.” The result is more manual handling, longer processing times, greater risk of misrouting or damage, and a compounding strain on personnel who are already dealing with peak-season volume increases. The association argued that the current model “disrupts regular air freight” and demands structural intervention, not just more headcount.

    What this means if you ship from the US to Europe

    If you buy from American retailers and receive packages in the Netherlands, Germany, or elsewhere in Europe, your parcel likely transits through one of these major air cargo hubs. The ACN warning is a signal that the infrastructure moving your package is under increasing stress. A few practical implications follow:

    • Processing delays become more likely. When handlers face thousands of loose parcels per flight, scan-and-sort throughput drops. Your package may sit longer at a transfer hub than it would in a well-organized consolidated shipment.
    • Damage risk rises. ACN noted that boxes arrive collapsed and unstackable. A single small parcel packed loosely inside a larger carton is more vulnerable to crushing than a box that has been properly padded and consolidated.
    • Misrouting and lost parcels are harder to trace. When items arrive in poly-mailers with no weight indicator and unclear labels, a mis-scan is harder to catch before the parcel ends up in the wrong destination bin.

    None of this means your package will certainly be damaged or delayed. But the trend ACN is describing is structural: as long as ecommerce volume grows and parcels keep arriving as individual, unstandardized units, the friction at the handling level will persist.

    Why the difference between one box and five mailers matters

    There is a simple operational truth in what ACN is describing: a single, well-padded, clearly labeled box is easier to move through an air cargo system than five loose poly-mailers of varying sizes. The former can be weighed once, scanned once, stacked, and loaded. The latter requires individual handling at every touchpoint.

    This is not an argument against direct-ship-from-retailer models. For a single item, shipping directly is often the simplest choice. But if you are pulling together an order from two or three US stores, or running a small resale operation with regular cross-border volume, consolidating those items into one or two properly packed boxes before they enter the international air cargo network reduces the number of individual handling events your goods go through. Fewer touchpoints, fewer chances for a parcel to be crushed under a collapsed box above it or lost in a pile of unidentifiable mailers.

    Services like Viabox operate on exactly this logic: you send your US orders to a domestic address, the packages are received, inspected, and repacked into a single consolidated box, and then that one box goes through customs and air cargo handling as a unified unit rather than a scatter of individual parcels. No monthly fee, no commitment — you pay only when you actually ship.

    The bigger picture for cross-border shoppers

    ACN’s warning to IATA is ultimately a call for the industry to catch up with the reality that ecommerce now represents a substantial share of air cargo volume. Until that handling code exists and airports adapt their facilities, the strain described in The Loadstar’s report is likely to continue. For anyone regularly importing goods from the US into Europe, the practical advice is straightforward: reduce the number of individual parcels entering the international pipeline, pack them properly, and choose a shipping route where your goods are consolidated before they hit the tarmac. The carriers and handlers are telling us, in increasingly specific terms, that the old way of flooding the system with loose parcels is not sustainable. Adapting your approach now is less hassle than sorting through a damaged or delayed parcel later.

    Ready to put your US address to work? Log in to your Viabox dashboard to manage shipments and consolidate packages — or create your free US address in minutes.

    Go to my Viabox dashboard →

  • CBP Can Revoke Your US Import Rights Over a Wrong Email Address

    CBP Can Revoke Your US Import Rights Over a Wrong Email Address

    What just changed at US Customs and Border Protection

    Starting September 18, 2026, U.S. Customs and Border Protection will begin revoking a shipper’s right to import goods into the United States if the customs information on file is inaccurate. That means a stale phone number, a wrong email, or an outdated physical address could be enough to void your importer-of-record (IOR) standing overnight, according to a Federal Register filing reported by Supply Chain Dive.

    The rule applies to every importer of record, whether or not a licensed customs broker submitted the paperwork on their behalf. As Supply Chain Dive notes, CBP explicitly stated that shippers remain responsible for keeping their information accurate after the initial submission. If you registered two years ago from a previous office or a different mobile number and never updated it, that alone now puts your import privileges at risk.

    What the new enforcement actually requires

    CBP is not simply adding a checkbox. The agency is conducting what it calls a “comprehensive review” of shipper records already on file, checking phone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses for accuracy. The Federal Register filing says accurate IOR information is “essential for ensuring compliance with customs and trade laws of the United States in order to safeguard national security, enforce product safety requirements, and protect the revenue.”

    If CBP identifies a discrepancy, the agency will notify the importer in writing and provide guidance on how to reestablish IOR standing. But the revocation itself is not a gentle nudge. The filing references the possibility of additional punitive actions beyond a simple suspension, though CBP did not specify what those might be.

    The measure builds directly on a June executive order from the Trump administration, which directed CBP to crack down on foreign IORs, raise penalty floors for non-compliant shippers, and require all IORs to be in “good standing” within 180 days of the June 3 order. Good standing is evaluated based on compliance history, payments made for past infractions, and other factors CBP tracks. The agency has also signaled it is considering traceability technology and mandatory export documentation as further enforcement tools.

    André Cruz, a senior manager of trade and customs, told Supply Chain Dive: “If your compliance budget was denied last quarter, take this to your CFO.” In other words, the agency expects businesses to treat customs data hygiene as an ongoing operational expense, not a one-time setup task.

    Why this matters if you buy in the US and ship abroad

    At first glance, this rule sounds like it only affects importers bringing goods into the United States. But the compliance environment it creates ripples in both directions.

    Small resellers who source products from overseas, import them into the US, and then list them for international buyers are now operating under a stricter data-accuracy regime. A single outdated address on a customs form can freeze your ability to receive the very inventory you need to sell. That inventory never reaches a forwarding warehouse, never gets consolidated, never ships to the customer in Riyadh, Mexico City, or Lisbon.

    For everyday international shoppers who buy US retail goods and have them shipped to their country, the tighter customs climate signals a broader trend: border agencies worldwide are investing in automated cross-checks, traceability requirements, and faster penalty mechanisms. The same “comprehensive review” logic that CBP is applying to importers is the model other national customs authorities are copying for parcels arriving from the US. Expect more requests for proof of purchase, more scrutiny on declared values, and less tolerance for vague or generic descriptions on commercial invoices.

    Practically, this means the people who handle your customs paperwork — whether that’s a freight forwarder, a parcel broker, or the logistics platform coordinating your shipment — are now doing more than filling in a form. They are maintaining a compliance record that must stay current across every jurisdiction your package crosses.

    What to do right now

    If you import goods into the US for resale or personal use, audit your CBP registration before September 18. Confirm that the name, address, phone number, and email on file match your current details exactly. If you work with a customs broker, ask them to verify that their records mirror yours — CBP’s filing makes clear that the IOR, not the broker, bears the responsibility for accuracy.

    If you are a regular international shopper who picks up packages at a US address and has them forwarded overseas, keep your purchase receipts, exact product descriptions, and declared values organized. A customs agent in your destination country will be working from the same compliance data, and inconsistencies between the US export record and the inbound declaration are the most common trigger for holds, additional duties, or outright seizure.

    For small businesses running a lean operation, the lesson from Cruz’s comment is straightforward: budget a few hours each quarter to review your trade registrations, confirm your contacts, and confirm your broker’s filings match yours. The cost of that hour is negligible compared to the cost of a halted import shipment or a revoked IOR status during a product launch window.

    Services like Viabox, which manage the US-side receiving, consolidation, and international forwarding under a single accountable logistics workflow, are built with this compliance layer in mind — accurate commercial documentation, consistent IOR records, and real-time visibility from the moment a package hits a US warehouse to the moment it clears customs in your country. When the rules tighten on both ends of the border, having one partner who owns the full chain reduces the number of places a single stale data point can stall your order.

    The broader takeaway from the CBP filing is not that one more form has to be filled out. It is that the era of “good enough” customs data is ending. The agencies on both sides of your shipment are now cross-referencing, auditing, and enforcing with a level of automation that leaves little margin for error. Keep your records current, keep your paperwork precise, and make sure the logistics partner handling your cross-border leg treats your shipment’s compliance data as seriously as your product itself.

    Ready to put your US address to work? Log in to your Viabox dashboard to manage shipments and consolidate packages — or create your free US address in minutes.

    Go to my Viabox dashboard →

  • FedEx Ships a Shopify App That Guarantees Your Import Costs

    FedEx Ships a Shopify App That Guarantees Your Import Costs

    What FedEx Just Launched on Shopify

    According to Supply Chain Dive, FedEx this week unveiled “FedEx Duty and Tax,” a new Shopify app that gives cross-border shoppers a guaranteed total landed cost at checkout. If actual duties or taxes come in higher than the quoted figure, FedEx covers the overage. The tool is part of a broader suite called the Global Trade Navigator, which the carrier is rolling out to help businesses of every size ship internationally.

    The announcement lands at a moment when surprise import charges are one of the most common complaints in cross-border ecommerce. In a poll conducted for the 2026 FedEx Small Business Trade Index (cited by Supply Chain Dive), 68 percent of small and medium-sized businesses reported that customers are caught off guard by additional duties, taxes, or fees upon delivery at least some of the time.

    How the Cost Guarantee Actually Works

    The app plugs directly into a Shopify storefront. When an international shopper reaches checkout, they see a single, all-in price that includes the product, shipping, and an estimated duty-and-tax amount. FedEx then stands behind that number: if customs assesses more than what was quoted, the carrier absorbs the difference rather than passing it to the buyer.

    Jason Brenner, FedEx’s SVP of digital portfolio, told Supply Chain Dive that the offering is “at parity or better” than competing solutions in terms of cost transparency, and that the carrier has “more to come” in terms of expanding the app beyond Shopify. He summarized the goal plainly: “We’re effectively making international shipping as easy as domestic shipping, and we’re getting a lot of wows.”

    FedEx is not the only player tackling this gap. UPS launched a similar service called UPS Global Checkout last year, which shows a guaranteed total landed cost before the buyer completes the purchase. Cross-border tech platform Zonos also offers a Duty and Tax app on Shopify that calculates duties at checkout and covers any customs billing discrepancies, per Supply Chain Dive.

    Why This Matters If You Shop US Stores and Ship Abroad

    If you live outside the United States and buy from American retailers—whether for personal use or for a small resale operation—duty and tax surprises remain the number-one friction point. You see a $40 pair of sneakers online, add a $12 shipping fee, and then a customs agent in Riyadh, Mexico City, or Manila tacks on an additional 15 to 30 percent in duties you never budgeted for. That experience erodes trust and, for resellers, quietly destroys thin profit margins.

    • For everyday shoppers: A guaranteed checkout price means you actually know what the package will cost before it leaves the US warehouse. No more “why is my parcel stuck at customs with a $23 fee I never saw?”
    • For small resellers: Predictable landed costs make it far easier to price your inventory correctly in your local market. If you are sourcing from US marketplaces and selling on a regional platform, margin uncertainty has always been the hidden killer.
    • For the broader market: When multiple carriers compete on duty transparency, the overall standard shifts. Retailers that once shrugged at international customers now have a concrete tool to offer.

    The Bigger Shift: Carriers Competing on the Last-Mile Trust Problem

    The launch signals a broader change in how express carriers think about international parcels. For years, the competitive battleground was speed and tracking. Now the fight is moving to the commercial layer—duties, taxes, refunds, and the total cost of arrival. FedEx, UPS, and tech platforms like Zonos are all racing to close the gap between what a shopper sees on screen and what actually lands on their doormat.

    For package-forwarding customers specifically, this trend is helpful context. Services that give you a real US receiving address, consolidate your orders, and handle the international leg—like Viabox—operate in the same ecosystem. When carriers make duty calculations more transparent and cover overages, the entire forwarding and cross-border shopping chain benefits. The package you pick up at a US store, bundle with other orders, and ship to your city in the Gulf or in Europe carries a more predictable price tag from start to finish.

    What to Watch Next

    Supply Chain Dive notes that FedEx has already been testing these capabilities with a small percentage of customers before the public announcement. Expect the Global Trade Navigator suite to expand beyond Shopify in the coming months, and expect rival carriers to respond with their own guarantees. For international shoppers and small import businesses, the takeaway is simple: the days of treating cross-border duties as an unavoidable surprise are quietly coming to an end. If you are already building a habit of shopping US stores and shipping home, now is a good time to compare your landed-cost options and consolidate your orders before peak-season volume hits.

    Ready to put your US address to work? Log in to your Viabox dashboard to manage shipments and consolidate packages — or create your free US address in minutes.

    Go to my Viabox dashboard →

  • US Tariffs Still at 2x: What It Costs to Buy American and Ship Abroad

    US Tariffs Still at 2x: What It Costs to Buy American and Ship Abroad

    What the JPMorgan Data Actually Shows

    Supply Chain Dive reported this week on a new JPMorganChase Institute index tracking customs duty payments by midsize U.S. companies. The finding is blunt: despite some pullback from the peak, tariff burdens remain at more than twice the pre-2025 baseline. The index, set to 100 in October 2024, hit 314 in October 2025 before easing to 201 by May 2026, then ticking back up to 222 in June. That is the last month for which data is available.

    Apparel manufacturing, for example, saw its effective tariff burden climb from roughly 3.3% in the April 2023 to March 2024 window to 5.2% a year later. Government tariff revenue peaked at $34 billion in October 2025 and sat at $23.7 billion by June, according to figures cited by Supply Chain Dive. For any business or individual who depends on moving goods through U.S. customs, the takeaway is the same: the cost of doing cross-border commerce has not returned to anything resembling its 2024 level.

    Why Midsize Companies and Small Resellers Feel It Most

    The JPMorgan analysis zeroes in on midsize firms — those with annual revenue between $10 million and $1 billion or 50 to 499 employees. Supply Chain Dive notes these companies carry limited purchasing power, tighter profit margins, and fewer capital resources than the multinational giants that can absorb duty costs or renegotiate with suppliers. They are also underrepresented in the policy discussions that shape tariff schedules.

    That description fits a large slice of Viabox’s customer base. Small importers and resale operators in the Gulf, Latin America, and Southeast Asia who source from U.S. retailers, marketplaces, or wholesalers are effectively operating at the margin these data points describe. A 5-point tariff increase on a category can wipe out the entire spread on a single resale lot. When the base cost of goods in the U.S. creeps upward because of duties, the person who ships those items to Riyadh, Mexico City, or Manila absorbs the difference in their landed cost.

    What This Means for Your US Shopping Orders

    If you buy directly from U.S. stores — whether a single pair of sneakers, a bulk order of electronics accessories, or a seasonal clothing drop — the tariff environment is already baked into shelf and listing prices. Retailers are not uniformly passing costs back to consumers; they are making strategic choices about where the money goes.

    Retail Dive reported that Macy’s Inc. received $116 million in tariff refunds and is directing the bulk of it toward brand-building, store overhauls, and mitigating fuel volatility. Only a small portion will go to price reductions on select items like furniture and fine jewelry. The company posted net income of $169 million in its most recent quarter, nearly doubling year over year, and is backing away from broad promotions. In other words, the money is not flowing back into deep discounts that would make your U.S. sourcing trip cheaper.

    For a cross-border shopper, this translates into a practical reality: U.S. retail prices in tariff-affected categories (apparel, electronics components, furniture, certain consumer goods) are unlikely to see the sweeping markdowns that might have offset higher shipping and duty costs on the importing side. Planning purchases around sales events or category-specific promotions — rather than assuming a general price reset — becomes more important than it was in 2024.

    Smarter Strategies for Cross-Border Buyers

    The tariff math is not something a single shopper or a small reseller can lobby out of the federal budget. What you can control is how you buy, consolidate, and ship. A few practical levers stand out:

    • Consolidate before you ship. Combining multiple small U.S. orders into one outbound parcel reduces per-package handling fees, lowers the risk of a duty surcharge being applied to several small shipments instead of one, and simplifies customs documentation.
    • Time purchases around retailer promotions. With brands like Macy’s and others selectively cutting prices on specific SKUs rather than across the board, watching for category-specific sales windows matters more than ever.
    • Keep your documentation clean. As tariff schedules shift quarter to quarter, having accurate commercial invoices, correct HS codes, and clear value declarations speeds up customs clearance on the receiving end and reduces the chance of holds or reclassification.
    • Factor in the full landed cost before you order. Product price, U.S. domestic shipping to a consolidation point, international freight, and the destination-country duty are all part of the same equation. A product that looks like a bargain at checkout can become the most expensive item in your cart once the full chain is priced out.

    For shoppers who do not have a physical address in the United States, a U.S. forwarding address becomes a practical way to centralize multiple store orders, consolidate them into a single outbound shipment, and present one clean customs package to the destination authority. Services like Viabox are built around that exact workflow: receive packages from any U.S. retailer, store and combine them if you want, and ship as one parcel to 150+ countries — with no monthly subscription, so you only pay when you actually send a shipment. That flexibility is especially useful when you are testing a new product line or building a resale inventory without committing to a warehouse lease.

    Bottom Line

    The JPMorgan data is a reminder that the tariff overhang is not a passing quarter; it is a structural cost layer that will influence U.S. retail pricing for the foreseeable future. You do not need to be a supply chain economist to feel it in the price tag on a U.S. online store. What you can do is buy strategically, consolidate intelligently, and make sure your shipment clears customs smoothly the first time. In a market where the base cost of goods is trending upward, the efficiency of your shipping and customs process is one of the few variables still in your control.

    Ready to put your US address to work? Log in to your Viabox dashboard to manage shipments and consolidate packages — or create your free US address in minutes.

    Go to my Viabox dashboard →

  • 68% of Shoppers Get Duty Shock at Delivery: What’s Really Driving It

    68% of Shoppers Get Duty Shock at Delivery: What’s Really Driving It

    A New Tool for a Growing Problem

    FedEx has launched Global Trade Navigator, a suite of digital tools designed to help businesses navigate the rising complexity of international shipping. The announcement, reported by Post & Parcel on September 10, arrives with striking statistics: according to the 2026 FedEx Small Business Trade Index, 68% of small- and medium-sized businesses report that their customers are regularly surprised by duties at delivery, and 60% say they lose revenue through refunds or abandoned purchases when the final cost at the border exceeds what was expected at checkout.

    The platform targets the SMB segment — small resellers, online retailers, and independent brands that ship goods internationally but lack a dedicated trade-compliance team. FedEx senior vice president Jason Brenner framed the problem plainly: “International shipping requires businesses to make complex decisions long before a package begins its journey.” The tool is meant to surface duties, tax rules, and customs documentation requirements earlier in the workflow, so clearance problems get caught before a parcel is stuck at a border.

    Why the Surprise Keeps Happening

    Those numbers are not isolated. The broader trade environment has shifted dramatically in the past 18 months. As Supply Chain Dive reported this week, citing a JPMorganChase Institute study, U.S. corporate duty payments remain more than twice their pre-2025 baseline, and every industry has seen tariff burdens increase since the broad tariff regime was announced in April 2025. The study focused on midsize companies — firms with revenue between $10 million and $1 billion or 50 to 499 employees — which, as the report notes, are “generally more exposed to changes in trade policy because they have limited purchasing power, tighter profit margins and fewer capital resources compared with large multinational corporations.”

    For a consumer in Mexico, the UAE, or the Philippines ordering a pair of sneakers from a U.S. storefront, the practical effect is the same: the item costs more at the border than it did in the cart. Customs procedures, de minimis thresholds, and per-item duty calculations differ by destination country, and a single parcel containing multiple product categories can trigger multiple duty assessments. The result is the exact scenario FedEx’s data describes — a buyer who budgeted $60 finds $25 in duties and VAT waiting at the door, and the package gets returned or refunded.

    Three Trends Cross-Border Shoppers Should Watch

    Several developments in this week’s coverage bear directly on anyone who buys from U.S. stores or resells internationally:

    • Duty complexity is increasing, not decreasing. The JPMorgan data, via Supply Chain Dive, shows tariff burdens are structurally higher than pre-2025 levels. Even where specific rates fluctuate, the baseline is elevated, and more product categories face additional duties or classification changes year to year.
    • Per-item classification now matters more than per-parcel pricing. The Loadstar reported that Belgium’s customs chief, Kristian Vanderwaeren, told the EU CBEC ecommerce forum that simplified low-value declarations in Belgium fell roughly 50% year on year after the new per-item €3 fee took effect on July 1, while standard H1 declarations jumped by about 3 million. The direction of travel — more scrutiny, more item-level accounting — is the same across borders.
    • Peak-season surcharges layer on top of everything. FedEx, UPS, USPS, and Amazon all announced 2026 holiday surcharges that are higher than last year’s, as Supply Chain Dive confirmed. Even carriers that waive a peak fee still carry elevated fuel surcharges, and the combined effect pushes per-parcel costs upward exactly when order volumes spike.

    Practical Steps Before You Ship

    You don’t need a trade-compliance department to avoid the 68% surprise. A few concrete habits make a real difference:

    • Confirm the destination country’s de minimis threshold and current per-item duty rates before you order, not after the parcel is in transit. Rates and thresholds change, and retailer pages often don’t update quickly.
    • Consolidate items from the same store or category into a single parcel where possible. In several jurisdictions, duty is assessed per item or per HS code, so splitting a $40 order into three separate $13 packages can triple your customs fees.
    • Use a forwarding or consolidation service that handles U.S. receiving, repacking, and international shipping as one workflow. This keeps the origin address in the U.S. (where most online stores will ship), bundles multiple small orders into fewer parcels, and routes the international leg through a carrier that has already mapped customs procedures for your destination. Services like Viabox operate on exactly this model — a U.S. address, optional consolidation, and a single international shipment with duties and taxes calculated up front, so there’s no mystery fee waiting at the doorstep.
    • Keep your documentation clean. Accurate descriptions, correct HS codes, and honest declared values reduce the chance of a customs hold, which is where delays and additional fees pile up.

    The Bigger Takeaway

    FedEx building a dedicated trade-navigation platform is a signal, not an exception. The industry is acknowledging that the “just ship it” era of cross-border ecommerce is over. Duties, taxes, and customs procedures are now a first-order cost and a first-order risk for anyone moving a parcel across a border. For shoppers and small resellers, the good news is that the complexity is navigable — you just need to build the right information and logistics steps into the process before the package leaves the U.S., not after it arrives at a foreign customs office. If you’re planning a fall or holiday shopping run from U.S. stores, sorting out your destination country’s current duty rules and choosing a shipping route that accounts for them is the single highest-leverage thing you can do to protect your budget.

    Ready to put your US address to work? Log in to your Viabox dashboard to manage shipments and consolidate packages — or create your free US address in minutes.

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  • 2026 Peak Season Surcharges: What Cross-Border Shoppers Need to Know

    2026 Peak Season Surcharges: What Cross-Border Shoppers Need to Know

    UPS, FedEx, and USPS Just Locked In Their 2026 Peak Season Surcharges

    All three major US carriers have now filed their peak season surcharge schedules for the 2026 holiday shipping period, and the numbers are notably higher than last year. FedEx filed its changes on July 22, USPS on August 25, and UPS on August 26. UPS begins applying handling and size surcharges on September 27, with residential demand charges layering on starting October 25, running through January 16, 2027. FedEx follows a nearly identical timeline: handling and size fees start September 28, residential demand charges kick in October 26, and the surcharge period closes January 17, 2027. USPS’s own temporary peak surcharge, still pending final sign-off from the Postal Regulatory Commission, is set to take effect October 4 and run through January 17.

    The steepest charges land in the heart of the holiday rush: November 22 through December 26 for UPS, and November 23 through December 27 for FedEx. Compared to 2025, UPS Ground residential surcharges are up an average of 23%, FedEx Ground residential is up about 22%, and commercial USPS Ground Advantage surcharges have climbed roughly 32%.

    Why These Are Called “Demand” Surcharges, Not Just Holiday Fees

    The naming shift matters. Peak surcharges used to be a predictable, seasonal add-on confined to the November-to-January window. By rebranding them as demand surcharges, carriers are signaling that these fees can be triggered any time volume spikes, not only around Black Friday and Christmas. A mid-year sales event, a supply chain disruption, or even an unexpected surge from one retailer could now trigger similar charges outside the traditional holiday calendar. For high-volume shippers, the tiers get steep fast: UPS has confirmed rates reaching as much as $7.50 per package on ground and $8.75 on air for accounts moving more than 20,000 packages in a week.

    What It Means If You Buy From US Stores and Ship Abroad

    If you shop US retailers and have packages forwarded internationally, this isn’t background noise. Most forwarding services route outbound international shipments through these same carrier networks, so surcharges on the US domestic and international legs tend to work their way into what you ultimately pay to get a box out of the country. A few concrete impacts to expect this quarter:

    • Shipping costs on anything sent between late September and mid-January will likely run higher than the same order would have cost in August.
    • Each additional package you ship compounds the effect, since several of these surcharges are applied per parcel rather than per order.
    • Small resellers who place frequent, separate orders across fashion, electronics, or beauty brands during Q4 sales will feel this more than occasional shoppers, simply because of package volume.
    • The heaviest surcharge window (late November through late December) lines up exactly with Black Friday and Cyber Monday buying, so the cheapest time to ship is often before or after that stretch, not during it.

    How to Get Ahead of It

    The most direct way to blunt the impact is to reduce how many individual packages you’re sending, since consolidation turns several surcharge-eligible parcels into one. This is exactly the kind of situation Viabox’s consolidation service is built for: instead of forwarding five separate Black Friday orders as five separate international shipments, they get combined into a single outbound box at the Portland warehouse, which means paying one set of carrier fees instead of five. Timing also helps. Placing orders and requesting shipment before the surcharge windows open in late September, or holding shipments until after the late-December peak passes, can meaningfully lower what you pay to get holiday purchases home.

    If you’re planning a US shopping run this quarter, it’s worth mapping out your order and shipping timeline now rather than after the surcharges are already in effect. A quick look at your Viabox account’s consolidation options before Black Friday orders start arriving can save more than a few dollars once these new rates are fully active.

    Ready to put your US address to work? Log in to your Viabox dashboard to manage shipments and consolidate packages — or create your free US address in minutes.

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  • Europe’s Port Strikes Are Rippling Into Delivery Delays

    Europe’s Port Strikes Are Rippling Into Delivery Delays

    Two separate labor disputes collided at Europe’s busiest ports this week, and the timing could hardly have been worse. From September 2 through 4, a 48-hour warning strike hit six German seaports — Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Wilhelmshaven, Bremen, Brake, and Emden — over a pay dispute between the ver.di union and terminal operators. Almost simultaneously, on September 4, Dutch dockworkers under the FNV Havens union walked out for eight hours at Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and the Zeeland ports in protest of the government’s social security plans. The two strikes weren’t coordinated, but they landed on the same window and hit nearly every major gateway into northern Europe at once.

    The unions and terminal operators aren’t far apart on paper — ver.di is asking for an 8.2% raise (or at least €2.50 an hour) under a 12-month deal, while employers have offered 5.1% (about €1.20 an hour) over 18 months — but this was already the second warning strike in the dispute after an earlier 24-hour walkout in August, and neither side has signaled a quick resolution.

    Why a Few Hours of Strike Turns Into Days of Delay

    Port strikes rarely stay contained to their announced hours. Container terminals don’t simply pause and resume — ships keep arriving on schedule, so vessels queue outside the breakwater while cranes sit idle, and once operations restart, terminals have to work through a backlog before anything moves at normal speed. That backlog then squeezes the rail and inland barge slots that move containers away from the coast, so the disruption spreads well past the ports themselves.

    It also arrived at a bad moment. Rotterdam, Hamburg, and Bremerhaven were already sitting near the top of industry congestion rankings, with more than 160,000 TEU reportedly waiting at anchor across the three ports before the strikes even began. Layering a labor stoppage on top of that kind of backlog doesn’t just cause a short delay — it compounds an existing one.

    Why This Matters Even If You’ve Never Touched a Container Ship

    Most of Viabox’s customers aren’t booking ocean freight — they’re buying from US retailers and having individual packages forwarded abroad. But this kind of disruption still reaches you indirectly. Small resellers who consolidate inventory and ship it home in bulk via ocean freight are the most directly exposed group, since a delayed vessel or a skipped port call can push a shipment back by weeks, not days, right as many businesses start building inventory for the pre-holiday season. Even shoppers who aren’t moving freight by sea can feel secondary effects, since carriers sometimes divert air or express capacity to cover for ocean delays, which tightens capacity and nudges rates upward across the board during peak periods.

    This is also a useful reminder of how fragile a single-mode shipping plan can be. A strike, a storm, a canal restriction, or a congested port can each knock out one route on their own — and when a business’s entire supply chain runs through one gateway, any one of those events becomes a real problem.

    How to Keep Your Shipments Moving

    A few practical habits help limit the exposure:

    • If you’re consolidating and shipping in bulk, build in extra lead time around known labor disputes rather than assuming a strike’s stated hours are the full disruption window.
    • Ask your freight forwarder directly whether your routing touches Rotterdam, Hamburg, or Bremerhaven, since those are the ports currently carrying the backlog.
    • For time-sensitive or lower-volume shipments, air and express courier networks bypass ocean terminals entirely, which matters when a specific seaport is the bottleneck.
    • Order and ship earlier than usual heading into peak season — congestion this early in September tends to get worse, not better, as volumes climb toward the holidays.

    This is precisely the kind of disruption that individual package forwarding sidesteps by design. When you ship through Viabox, your US address forwards packages by air and courier networks rather than routing through a container port, so a Rotterdam dock strike or a Hamburg wage dispute simply isn’t in the path your package takes. If you’re a shopper or a small reseller who wants a way to keep US purchases moving internationally without betting on any single port staying open, that’s worth having in your back pocket as peak season approaches.

    Ready to put your US address to work? Log in to your Viabox dashboard to manage shipments and consolidate packages — or create your free US address in minutes.

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  • EU’s New Product ID Rule Kicks In November 1

    EU’s New Product ID Rule Kicks In November 1

    A New EU Customs Rule Lands on November 1

    The EU has spent most of 2026 rebuilding how it handles incoming parcels. Pre-arrival security data (ICS2) became mandatory for all shipments on June 1. The old €150 duty-free threshold disappeared on July 1, replaced by a temporary €3 flat charge per line item on the customs declaration. Now comes the next piece: starting November 1, 2026, every business-to-consumer parcel entering the EU — regardless of its value — must carry a proper product identifier on each declaration line, or risk getting stuck at the border.

    What a “Product Identifier” Actually Means

    This isn’t a new duty or fee — it’s a data requirement, and it’s stricter than what most shippers are used to providing. Under the new rule, a customs declaration should include up to three identifiers for each line item:

    • A Merchant Product Identifier — the seller’s own SKU, listing ID, or internal product code
    • A Manufacturer Product Identifier — the code assigned by the maker or supplier of the item
    • A standardised identifier such as a GTIN, EAN, or UPC barcode, where one exists

    Vague labels like “clothing,” “electronics,” or “gift” — long accepted on customs forms — will no longer cut it. EU customs authorities have said they can reject, hold, or flag for further inspection any declaration missing this level of detail. Voluntary submission has been allowed since July 1, but from November 1 it becomes mandatory for B2C shipments. Business-to-business parcels going to a VAT-registered company are exempt.

    Why This Matters If You Shop US Stores and Ship to Europe

    If you’re in the EU and use a US address to buy from American retailers, this change touches nearly everything you order. It doesn’t matter if the item costs $12 or $1,200 — the identifier requirement applies to any value now, not just the low-value packages that used to fall under the de minimis exemption. That’s a shift from earlier 2026 changes, which mostly targeted cheap parcels from marketplace sellers. This one applies broadly, right as the run-up to the holiday shopping season begins, when parcel volumes into Europe spike and customs backlogs are already more likely.

    The practical risk is a held shipment: a package sitting in a customs facility because the declaration only said “shoes” instead of naming the brand, model, and a manufacturer or barcode reference. Multiply that across a consolidated box with several different purchases, and one vague line item can slow down the whole shipment.

    How to Get Ahead of It

    The fix is mostly about paperwork you already have sitting in your inbox:

    • Keep the original order confirmation or receipt from the US store — it usually lists the item name, model number, or SKU
    • For electronics, appliances, or branded goods, note the manufacturer’s model number if it’s not obvious from the listing
    • Avoid generic descriptions when you can — “Nike Air Zoom Pegasus 41, size 9” clears customs far more smoothly than “shoes”

    At Viabox, we already ask for an item description and declared value on every package before it ships internationally, since accurate customs paperwork is what keeps a forwarded shipment moving instead of sitting in a warehouse overseas. We’re updating our EU shipping process now so packages booked under our account carry the product detail this rule requires, but the more specific the information you give us up front, the faster your box clears customs on the other end.

    If you’re planning any US purchases to ship to Europe this fall, it’s worth sorting out your receipts before November 1 rather than after a package gets stuck. Whether you’re shipping with Viabox or another provider, ask now how they intend to handle the new requirement — it’s a much easier conversation to have before your holiday orders are in transit.

    Ready to put your US address to work? Log in to your Viabox dashboard to manage shipments and consolidate packages — or create your free US address in minutes.

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