Friday, October 04, 2024
Costing a packet – selling to the USA

Costing a packet – selling to the USA

The UK’s supposed post-Brexit ‘white knight’, America, is actually imposing steep new taxes and price increases on goods and small parcels sent to the USA from overseas. The international delivery specialist ParcelHero says it will cost significantly more to mail to America and absorb the impact of new US duties next year.

Britain may be looking to the US as its target market in a post-Brexit world, but the international delivery specialist ParcelHero says trading conditions are rapidly worsening for UK retailers selling to the US.

David Jinks MILT, ParcelHero’s head of consumer research, says: “The USA is many British companies’ second largest market after the EU, and many more will be looking at increasing their US sales next year. But there are two significant new factors that will actually make UK sales to the US considerably less profitable in 2020.”

The new prices and tariffs are:

• New US duties of 25% on traditional British goods such as clothing and whisky – increasing the price of a typical Saville Row suit by £1,250 • A potentially massive rise in the price of mail such as packets below 2kg entering the US • US State sales taxes which previously didn’t apply to overseas sellers increasingly imposed on UK goods.

Explains Jinks: “UK online sellers to the US are already beginning to feel the bite of a raft of new taxes and price increases. Firstly, President Trump has just slapped $7.5bn of new tariffs on a long list of products entering the US in a tit-for-tat for what he claims are illegal subsidies the EU makes to Airbus.

“Britain’s exporters are subject to this tax while we remain in the EU, and as Airbus has 25 sites in the UK, manufacturing components such as wings, Trump has no intention of making a special exemption for British companies.

“From Friday 18 October, UK clothes manufacturers, from Saville Row suits to Scottish woollen knitwear, have seen a 25% tax imposed on their products as they enter the country; and other traditional British products such as Scotch Whisky are also caught in the same new tax regime. This means, for example, a typical Saville Row suit costing £5,000 will now actually cost £6,250 in the US. Specialist UK retailers will either have to somehow swallow the extra cost themselves or seek to impose it on their customers and probably lose sales.”

Concludes Jinks: “The final new hurdle for UK sellers to the US is that last year a controversial court ruling allowed US states to start charging sales taxes on items purchased online from overseas. This tax bombshell coincided with the majority of American states introducing “marketplace facilitator legislation” which means sales taxes are automatically taken on state sales by the likes of Amazon.

“For example, South Dakota’s sales tax of 4.5% has added an extra $9 to an $200 item. Add any relevant local sales taxes and the average overall sales tax is around 6.5% in total. That means a $200 item bought from a British online marketplace trader selling on Amazon.com or eBay.com will now cost their American buyer around $213 – and another £325 on that typical Saville Row suit if ordered online.”

ParcelHero has released a new report which reveals the sales tax thresholds of every state that has imposed a distance sales tax; and key details on how US states plan to pursue overseas companies. Read the full report here.

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James Graham

James Graham is an award-winning transport media journalist with a long background in the commercial freight sector, including commercial aviation and the aviation supply chain. He was the initial Air Cargo Week journalist and retuned later for a stint as editor. He continues his association as editor of the monthly supplements. He has reported for the newspaper from global locations as well as the UK.

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