The End of a Century-Old Trade Rule Is Set to Cause Holiday Mayhem
This holiday shopping season is shaping up to be a chaotic one.
Consumers are tightening their wallets amid growing economic uncertainty. Generative AI is playing an outsized role in helping shoppers find the right gifts for everyone on their list and, in some cases, even ringing them up.
On the backend, a major shift in U.S. trade policy is causing disruptions at the post office and beyond. In August 2025, the U.S. government ended the de minimis rule, a nearly 100-year-old policy that allowed goods valued under $800 to enter the country duty-free and with little customs oversight. Without this provision in place, about four million additional packages per day are now subject to import fees and processing bottlenecks, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
As a result, shoppers are facing fewer options, shipping delays and surprise customs bills. In other words, finding the right gifts and ensuring they arrive by Christmas may take a little effort — and compromise.
Less variety, higher fees
Right before the de minimis exemption was lifted, large retailers and established e-sellers with substantial cash flow rushed to move as much inventory into the U.S. as possible, says Marianne Rowden, CEO of E-Merchants Trade Council, Inc. That's partly, why, as of this writing, prices haven't spiked across the board.
The same can't be said for small businesses and independent sellers. Many are unable to absorb the new customs fees, and have been forced to update their shipping policies to pass those costs on to customers, Rowden says.
That can double or triple the price of a purchase, depending on its origin, the country's tariff rate and any extra customs fees.
“The problem," Rowden says, "is that customers may not know that they're liable for that [cost] until the item shows up with a duty bill.”
That bill isn't cheap. Local news outlets throughout the U.S. have reported cases of surprise customs bills in the triple digits. These bills often appear in a buyer's online account with the mail carrier, or via text with a payment link sent just before delivery.
If the courier has already handled the customs process internally — as FedEx, UPS and DHL often do — they may withhold a package until the customer reimburses them. On Reddit, one frustrated shopper shared how DHL, a mail service provider commonly used for international deliveries, charged them a $150 import fee on $200 worth of clothes — a 75% markup.
Paying the import duty is just the tip of the iceberg. Even if the bill is paid, the packages may still be held up at customs due to administrative errors. And since small sellers now have to comply with unfamiliar and complex trade regulations, mistakes inevitably arise.
“All of a sudden, businesses that never had trouble with the import process are having their shipments held up because they didn't do a particular thing that they were never told they had to do,” says Kyle Peacock, company principal at Peacock Tariff Consulting.
Shoppers may also notice fewer online stores to choose from this holiday season.
Before the de minimis rule ended, buying a nice European yarn for the knitter in your family or a specialty tea from Japan for a friend was easy, and there were plenty of niche online shops to choose from. Now, many of those same merchants have stopped selling to the U.S. entirely. Others may still let you view their listings, and maybe even hit “add to cart,” but set exorbitant shipping fees to dissuade you from checking out.
Free returns may be harder to come by, too. Online retailers once offered this perk freely — to the relief of shoppers wary of buying clothes or shoes without trying them on first. But between rising inflation, the growing volume of online orders and the increasing costs to ship items to U.S., e-sellers are revising their returns policies ahead of the holiday season, leaving customers to foot the bill on any buyer's remorse.
Sellers are also navigating uncharted waters
Prior to August, many small business owners didn't even realize they were benefitting from the de minimis rule, Rowden says.
“All they knew was that the logistics were very fast, [there were] direct to consumer shipments and they didn't have to pay customs duties,” she says. Now, they face a tangle of red tape that's starting to impact their bottom line.
For U.S.-based companies that import products or materials, it's getting harder to avoid price hikes.
One strategy businesses are exploring is switching suppliers. An auto parts dealer sourcing from China, for instance, might pivot to Canada or Mexico, which benefit from some tariff exemptions under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). But the process is rarely easy, Rowden notes. Companies build up these relationships over a long period of time and “that's hard to substitute,” she says.
Other businesses are raising free shipping minimums and promoting bundles, value sets and gift-with-purchase deals to boost sales without increasing prices on individual products.
Apothékary, a wellness brand known for herbal supplements and tinctures, adopted this model. In an interview with Retail Brew, CEO Shizu Okusa said the company removed free shipping on orders under $99 after realizing smaller purchases were actually costing them money.
Stonemaier Games, the board game company behind Wingspan and Viticulture, took a unique approach. At checkout, the company now offers an optional “tariff offset gift card," which is essentially a $3 surcharge to help Stonemaier cover the 30% tariff it has to pay to import products into the U.S.
In a July 14 post on the company's blog, founder Jamey Stegmaier wrote, "It gives customers the option to someday use the gift card if they want (though the general idea – approved by our accountant – is that anyone who wants Stonemaier Games to keep the extra $3 doesn’t use the gift card in the future.)”
Tackle your gift list ASAP (and read the fine print)
Since many businesses bulk-ordered inventory ahead of the rule change, tariff-related price hikes have been somewhat delayed, according to Peacock. This will likely change closer to the holidays.
For online shoppers, it's best to avoid the “1-click payment” button at checkout. Review your cart carefully, or risk being surprised by hidden import fees upon delivery.
The key term to look for is "delivery duty paid" or DDP — trade jargon for when the seller is covering all import costs. But Rowden says sellers don't always use this language clearly.
“[Customers] need to carefully scan the web page for that product, or go to the terms and conditions ... to see whether they're responsible for the customs duties or not,” she says.
Now is also a great time to start hunting the resale market. As clothing, shoes and furniture have gotten more expensive, consumers have increasingly turned to secondhand shops — if you usually thrift gifts, expect more competition this year.
Ultimately, the end of the de minimis rule is more than an inconvenience; it's reshaping the way we shop online. And while the consequences of tariffs have been hotly-debated for months, experts predict the holiday season will make it much more tangible to the average American.
“Sooner or later, this impact has to show up,” says Rowden. “And this 90-day period towards the end of the year ...will tell us a lot."
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