Nov. 26, 2025 "Sellers in other countries struggle to maintain U.S. customers as holiday shopping season starts": Today I found this article by Mae Anderson on BNN Bloomberg:
NEW YORK — At Fleece & Harmony, a woolen mill and yarn shop in bucolic Belfast, Prince Edward Island, owner Kim Doherty used to be able to send yarn skeins to U.S. customers across the border with little fanfare.
The yarn orders usually met an import tax exemption for packages valued at under US$800, meaning it could be imported tariff-free and avoid the customs process.
But ever since the Trump administration eliminated the exemption as of Aug. 29, the cost to send yarn to U.S. customers has skyrocketed.
The bill for a US$21 ball of yarn now includes
US$12 to US$15 in brokerage fees that her shipper UPS charges,
plus state taxes
and a 6.5 per cent tariff,
all of which almost doubles her costs.
“We had orders that have reached the customers and they’re in shock about the fact that they have to pay,” she said.
“And it’s amazing how many people really didn’t know what the impact was going to be.”
Getting rid of the so-called de minimis exemption was meant to
curb drug trafficking
and stop low-quality goods from discount sellers like Temu and Shein flooding the U.S. market.
But as the all-important annual holiday shopping season kicks off,
it is putting a crimp on small businesses and shoppers now facing higher costs.
Chad Lundquist in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, ordered fragrance oil from a site called Oil Perfumery in October, but he didn’t realize the business was based in Toronto.
His total was US$35.75,
which included an US$8 standard shipping fee.
But when his package arrived, he was hit with a US$10.80 tariff bill from FedEx.
“It wasn’t worth the $10 tariff for a $27 purchase,” Lundquist said. Oil Perfumery did not respond to a request for comment.
He’s not the only skittish shopper. Three months after the exemption ended,
sellers abroad are reporting drastic declines in U.S. sales.
Some are paying the duties themselves instead of passing them to consumers.
They are also trying to focus on domestic customers to replace U.S. ones
and adjusting product lineups to feature best selling items to try to goose sales.
Martha Keith, founder of British stationery brand Martha Brook, which is based in London with a small office in Melbourne, Australia,
said U.S. sales from her Etsy store — her main e-commerce channel in addition to her own website — were up 50 per cent for the year before the exemption ended.
But sales fell dramatically when the tariffs hit,
and continue to drop even though she’s paying
the import taxes
and customs fees herself
so customers aren’t impacted.
Sales are down about 30 per cent year-over-year.
“The issue seems to be in customer confidence hitting the desire to order from businesses outside of the U.S., because of confusion about how the tariffs will affect them,” Keith said.
She’s also in a bind because she sold a £109 (US$144) stationery advent calendar to about 200 U.S. customers ahead of the tariffs, and now she has to ship them.
Shipping and tariffs will cost a combined £25 (US$33),
meaning Keith will have to find an additional £5,000 (US$6,583) to cover shipping the advent calendars already sold.
“The whole thing has been a bit of a nightmare for businesses like ours, and such a huge shame, as the U.S. market was such a valuable growth area for us, particularly through Etsy,” she said.
The timing was particularly bad for Sue Bacarro, who along with her sister co-owns Digi Wildflowers, an Etsy shop that sells embroidered baby blankets, gifts and custom quilts for wedding and anniversaries, located across the border from Detroit in Windsor, Ontario.
Before the announcement of the removal of the de minimis exemption, they placed a large inventory order to prepare for the holiday season and early 2026 demand.
But when the de minimis exemption ended, “inventory wasn’t moving as expected, and we suspected customers were hesitant to purchase due to potential duty charges,” Bacarro said.
Sales — 70 per cent of which come from Americans — finally started to rebound when Digi Wildflowers prominently added a banner on its site that said, “U.S. Import Duties On Us.”
“Heading into this holiday season, we’re keeping that message front and centre through banners, social media, and direct communication,” said Bacarro, who is also expanding their product line.
But not all businesses can — or want to — pick up the tariff tab.
Kim Doherty, who runs the woolen mill on Prince Edward Island, doesn’t plan to pay the tariff and fees for her customers.
“I’m not in a position as a small business owner to do that. The profit margins are already rather thin,” said Doherty, adding that “on principle,” she shouldn’t have to do it.
Right now, her shipments to U.S. customers are about 10 per cent of what they were.
Instead, she’s working on expanding her fiber offerings to Canadian customers at her brick-and-mortar store and fiber festivals.
“We’ll see what happens,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that my U.S. customers were shopping and not even thinking about it, but now they’ll be evaluating the purchases that they’re making, knowing that they are going to have the extra fees on top of whatever they see.”
Some Etsy businesses have been stymied by international postal services temporarily halting deliveries to the U.S. because of the confusion around the ending of de minimis.
Selene Pierangelini’s business, Apricot Rain Creations, based in Brisbane, Australia, which sells crystals, candles, and spiritual wellness products on Etsy, depended on the Australia Post to get deliveries to U.S. customers.
More than three-fourths of her customer base comes from the U.S. Australia Post suspended service to the U.S. for about a month, resuming on Sept. 22.
She temporarily switched to FedEx and UPS — private shippers that are more expensive than Australia Post.
Since it resumed, Australia Post is working with Zonos, a provider of cross-border shipping technology, to offer a shipping calculator that lets her prepay duties and fees.
They themselves charge a fee of US$1.69 plus 10 per cent of the total duty fee.
So far, the items she ships from Australia have been tariffed at a 10 per cent rate, the baseline tariff for the country.
She increased her shipping costs to help cover the expense. It is manageable, but tricky, she said.
“You don’t really know how much (the cost) is going to be until the package clears custom in the U.S.,
and you get an invoice which is automatically paid out of your account,”
she said.
And her sales have not recovered.
Before the tariffs, her U.S. sales were about 85 per cent of her total sales,
and now they’re around 35 per cent.
She’s hopeful people are just holding off until Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday sales.
In the meantime, she has restarted sales to Europe, which she had paused in 2024 due to increased regulations.
And she’s launched a Facebook marketing campaign
and is exploring print-on-demand services from U.S.-based providers for production and fulfillment.
“This situation highlights how fragile small businesses can be when dependent on one market,”
Pierangelini said.
“While it has been a shock, it’s also pushed me
to diversify
— something that will hopefully make my business
stronger
and more resilient in the long run.”
Mae Anderson, The Associated Press
Nov. 28, 2025 "Christmas tree sellers seeing high demand this year despite some price increases": Today I found this article by Daniel Johnson on BNN Bloomberg:
With less than a month to go before the big day, Christmas tree sellers are preparing for some of the busiest days of the year.
An early snowfall in some regions, including a fresh dump Thursday night in parts of Ontario, seems to have stoked customer demand even as some trees are more expensive than last year.
David Thibeault heads Treasy International, a producer that also sells Christmas trees online in Ontario and Quebec.
He said he is seeing strong consumer demand so far that has exceeded his expectations.
Thibeault added that most other producers that he has spoken to also have good expectations for Christmas tree sales this year, noting that purchases are up.
“I think that this early snow made a big impact. It felt Christmasy ... Even in Toronto, we had snow early in the season, and so we saw that there was a major impact on the sales just because of that snow,” he said.
Benefiting from the early snowfall, Thibeault said his company also tries to cultivate the holiday spirit by completing tree deliveries with drivers outfitted to look like nutcracker soldiers.
He said his company is currently selling more trees than ever, up between 15 and 20 per cent year over year.
“I already sold around 24,000 trees online, and the numbers keep going up.”
Natalia Stuyt, a manager at Fallowfield Tree Farm and daughter of the owner Kenny Stuyt, said that consumers have been coming in earlier this year compared with previous years.
“I do believe that the snow definitely inspires people. As soon as there’s snow on the ground, we know we’re going to get calls,” she said.
Stuyt noted that demand for Christmas trees has been rising over the past five years, but it has started to plateau. Now, she said, Fallowfield Tree Farm gets a lot of repeat customers.
Stuyt said that the family business typically starts to get inquiries about tree purchases at the end of the fall, as soon as Halloween ends.
“And then we get a huge influx of calls as soon as the first snow comes or as soon as cold weather starts coming,” she said.
By the end of November, Stuyt said demand for Christmas trees sharply rises, and there are even some purchases after the Dec. 25 holiday.
But by Jan. 1, there are no more inquiries or purchases.
Doug Drysdale, the president of Drysdale Tree Farms Ltd., said his business also saw a bump during the COVID-19 pandemic that has remained. Year-to-year, he said, demand remains consistent, with a part of the population choosing to get a fresh-cut tree each year.
Drysdale said demand this year appears to be consistent with previous years so far, but the early snowfall “definitely gets people in the spirit.”
“By the weekend, virtually all of the tree lots in southern Ontario will have trees on their lot, and then they’ll be ready for this weekend and next weekend, which will be the two busiest weekends,” he said.
Drysdale added that despite consumers facing some economic pressures,
Christmas trees are a “once-a-year purchase” that many buyers will find the room for in their budget.
But some who purchase a tree will be facing higher prices.
Drysdale said that every business he knows has been dealing with rising costs.
“In order to cope with those increases, just like any other farm or any other business,
you’ve got to raise your prices a little bit to try and offset some of those costs which you’re incurring on a daily basis,”
he said.
As a result, Drysdale said his businesses raised prices about two per cent this year.
One of the challenges Drysdale Tree Farms has faced this year included
a drought during the summer,
which increased the mortality of seedlings it planted.
“You’ve spent a lot of money to plant the trees
and get the seedlings in the ground,
and then when they die,
that money’s gone.
And then it takes eight to 10 years to grow a tree,”
he said.
Meanwhile, Stuyt said Fallowfield Tree Farm raised its price by about $1 per foot of tree, with prices now sitting around $15 a foot.
She said inflation drove the business to raise its prices after they were stable for the last few years.
Thibeault said he thinks prices may now be at a stable point.
“The good news is I think we have seen the last of the increase for a couple of years, and we should have a stabilized price for a couple of years on the market,” he said.
Shirley Brennan, executive director for the Canadian Christmas Trees Association,
said that after the COVID-19 pandemic,
fertilizer prices rose by about 50 per cent,
but have since stabilized.
“We still are seeing increases in
labour costs
and transportation costs.
But for the most part ... farms that I’ve talked to, their prices are staying pretty steady,” Brennan said.
With a strong demand picture in Canada appearing to take shape, Thibeault, whose company also exports trees to the U.S., said the U.S. consumer demand for trees seems to have gone down.
“I think the U.S. economy is suffering a lot. What I see from my clients in the U.S. is that most of the orders that I have are lower than I had from the past year,” he said.
“One of the reasons is, of course, the economy. But also the government shutdown was a major setback for them because most employees didn’t have pay for many weeks, and so I think this had an impact on the sales of Christmas trees in the U.S. East Coast.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 28, 2025.
Daniel Johnson, The Canadian Press
My opinion: I find this kind of a waste of time, effort, and money and resources to buy a Christmas tree.
If you buy this at Nov. 1 and it's in your home till Jan. 31, this tree will be here for 3 months. Then you throw it out.
Or you can buy a small fake Christmas tree that you can put up and decorate each year.
This is if you have space in your home to store the tree when it's not the holiday season.
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