A Few Words About Shipping Now

We’ve been getting a few questions and starting to see some rumbling in our imports, so I’d like to clarify a bit, if possible.

As of now, shipping within the US is fine, not impacted at all. But the combination of tariffs, and the revocation of the de minimus exemption are beginning to ripple out.

Because we are tiny, we have more flexibility than large companies, in a way. We source from around the world, as you know, mainly from small distillers, though we do buy a few oils domestically.

Please rest assured—I’m on it. We have to tackle these questions country by country but so far, we are staying pretty well ahead of things. As of this writing, India is being tariffed at 50%, which is a huge problem and obviously means we have to deal with it in a more creative way.  As of now, we expect no delay in our shipments.

Another thing you should be aware of is the postal situation. This doesn’t affect the USPS domestic service but many countries have recently cut postal service to the US: most of Europe, Mexico, New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand etc. To the best of my knowledge, this affects those countries postal services and not international shipping companies like FEDEX or DHL, but I don’t know for sure. It’s a direct reaction to the third thing, in the next paragraph; the ending of the duty free status for packages valued under $800. We can also certainly predict that those private shipping companies will raise their prices significantly, if they even continue to send parcels to the US.

There’s a third thing, and the implications are massive. This is the ending of the $800 de minimus exemption. You may know that in the past, up to an $800 value parcel was allowed duty free into the US. As of the last week of August, this exemption has been discontinued. This imposition of importation duties will not directly affect most people on this list, but please remember that the vast majority of packages that come into the country, used to qualify for tax exemption and customs agencies were staffed accordingly. Think of how many parcels come from China, for example. Now, notwithstanding the overall drop in parcels noted in the above paragraph, this means there will be less customs officers on duty than is needed. We may therefore experience delays. And honestly, we don’t know what will happen or how things will be affected. It’s always better to be aware.

We hope that there will be no interruption to your order and this might very well be the case. But these are the situations now.  I just want people to know that we at Enfleurage are aware, and ready.