[catherd]

Only if "utterly fucked" somehow means you can still pay a bit more to DHL and get packages even faster than USPS.

Your fast prototypes coming by air freight likely aren't routed through USPS at all unless it's the last leg of a consolidated shipment that's broken apart once it reaches the US. Those would be using some other carrier to get them from China to the US and then USPS only inside the US. USPS all the way from China is slow.

Paying ~$30 for express shipping through DHL (plus whatever the new tariffs end up being) will still get you those parts in 3-5 days to most major shipping hubs in the US, your suppliers will just need to start filing the export paperwork correctly.

These changes will likely have bigger impacts on cheap off the shelf parts from e-commerce places like Temu or AliExpress, who were previously taking advantage of both the de minimis rule and inequal international rates through USPS.

Your Chinese suppliers can still ship by any of the normal commercial express shipping carriers as long as they understand how to file export paperwork or have an agent who can do it for them. Previously this usually added 1-2 days to the transit time over shipping undeclared "samples". Last year DHL moved to a paperless system and that extra 1-2 days delay is probably going away anyway. They may have even done it because they saw this coming. People have been grumbling about the de-minimis stuff for a while now.

[nottorp]

> Paying ~$30 for express shipping through DHL (plus whatever the new tariffs end up being) will still get you those parts in 3-5 days to most major shipping hubs in the US, your suppliers will just need to start filing the export paperwork correctly.

In my european experience, DHL is anything but fast when customs are involved. And I doubt they have the manpower to handle it for the new US rules.

> These changes will likely have bigger impacts on cheap off the shelf parts from e-commerce places like Temu or AliExpress, who were previously taking advantage of both the de minimis rule and inequal international rates through USPS.

Again in my european experience, the likes of Temu have solved the problem. You just order and a courier shows up with the taxes already handled. You paid Temu for them when you ordered and they paid the taxes for you at the point of entry to the EU.

Unfortunately they probably don't have a similar setup in the US, but they're likely to solve it much faster than DHL.

And of course prices will increase. Will that make them less competitive? Time will tell.

[catherd]

DHL B2C shipments to the EU are generally held in customs until the duty is paid, which makes it slow but ensures DHL isn't left holding the bag when people decide they don't want to pay unexpected import duties.

That's (historically) not the case for US B2B shipments. For those, DHL pays the duty as the shipment goes through customs and then sends an invoice after the parcel is delivered.

[account42]

> DHL B2C shipments to the EU are generally held in customs until the duty is paid

That used to be the case here in Germany until recently when they started paying the duty for you and then demand it at pickup along with a "small" markup (up to 1000% when the duty was low) for a service you never asked for.

[yladiz]

I agree, if the information is available electronically they should just automatically process it with no fee (I assume this is how it’s handled most of the time anyway). At least you can opt out of the process, but then you’re responsible for filling out all the forms, which suck since ATLAS is not a nice system to work with. Maybe in the future they’ll get rid of this admin fee.

[throwaway290]

DHL doesn't accept packages anymore (or temporarily, hopefully) either https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/4/22675...

[nottorp]

Understandable, they have to reevaluate the effort and probably adjust pricing. Upwards.

> DHL B2C shipments to the EU are generally held in customs until the duty is paid, which makes it slow but ensures DHL isn't left holding the bag when people decide they don't want to pay unexpected import duties.

Nothing is unexpected with DHL considering the amount of paperwork they want you to fill each time :) Even if you check "retain my data for next time and don't send me this form again".

They indeed send me a payment link and i pay for customs online before the package starts moving.

I don't do Asia->EU shipments but I get prototypes maybe 2-3 times per year from the US. We gave up on DHL and are using UPS now... they want 800% less forms, cost much less and take about the same time to deliver.

[m4rtink]

Yeah, DHL has been usually a pain with customs paperwork - needed far too much hand-holding compared to other options (eq. a regular local European carrier doing the same thing).

Unfortunately, with DHL this can even end up costing a lot of extra as they might even start to accumulate a storage fee as they hold the package while they make sense of the documents you sent them. :P

[rjsw]

It isn't just the EU that does this, AliExpress collects the taxes for shipments to the UK as well.

[_heimdall]

I had the same experience with DHL while I was in the Netherlands. Here in the US its been fine, my best guess is that it has to do with how customs and duties are handled.

[jagermo]

> In my european experience, DHL is anything but fast when customs are involved. And I doubt they have the manpower to handle it for the new US rules.

yeah, but like with t-mobile, I think the US branch might be working better than what we are used from them in europe/germany.

[dwaite]

This USPS announcement is most likely a reaction to just how far backlogged US customs is about to get. DHL won't save you.

[hnfong]

apparently DHL is not accepting parcels from Hong Kong to US: https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/4/22675...

not sure about other carriers but that doesn’t sound good

[boxed]

> Only if "utterly fucked" somehow means you can still pay a bit more to DHL and get packages even faster than USPS.

That probably will work for like a week, considering how fast and reckless the administration moves.

[relistan]

I’d deem it extremely unlikely that US customs processing or the express carriers will be able to handle that overflow in anything like a reasonable timeframe.

[catherd]

Could be.

The carriers do already have practice ramping up and down for Christmas and Chinese New Year so it seems plausible they could absorb significant extra volume in whatever time it would take to negotiate the leases on the extra flights they use during those times.

For that matter customs processing also has experience managing the same surges.

I'd believe we might have some sort of own-goal planned for customs that could hang things up.

[relistan]

Yes, they do. But my understanding is that we’re talking about almost the entire US-bound volume from China of all of Aliexpress, Temu, eBay, Amazon, and all the other retailers shipping from China. USPS carries a massive amount of load there. And almost none of that was dutied in customs because of the high de minimis value in the US.

[mrbigbob]

you do know how they "ramp up" right? All the big ones hire thousands of temp holiday workers then let them go shortly after. do you think they are going to hire thousands of full time workers for these roles. most of them since the pandemic have enjoyed record profit from already increasing shipping rates. this would be a perfect excuse for them to do it more

Nothing more American than the government attempting to kill competition so multi billion dollar corporations can get richer

[amarcheschi]

DHL hk announced they stopped shipping to us, except for letters

[486sx33]

I was just going to say … uhh DHL ? Prototyping through the regular mail or even air mail is a little crazy it’s worked at all for you.

[1oooqooq]

tipical liberal thinking. why on earth do you assume your favourite corporation will get in legal trouble to get you your package? if anything they will be slower because they will be fined and jailed for any mistakes. while the usps only gets a slap on the wrist.