NZ Post services to the US should resume within weeks, as it figures its way through the Trump administration’s tariffs.
The postal service had temporarily suspended parcel services to the US because of confusion caused by the tariff regime.
This included American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
NZ Post’s Jared Handcock told Morning Report the process was complex because the tariffs rate would depend on the origin of the goods.
“So this falls to the sender to actually determine where the goods are manufactured.”
He said NZ Post was relying on the sender therefore to declare the origin accurately and fully, so that they could pass that information onto US customs.
“That’s in part where this complexity comes in and unfortunately the reason why we’ve had to temporarily suspend services.”
Handcock said the tax kicks in at the end of this week on all parcels, with the exception of gifts under a certain value.
“If it’s a consumer sending, so someone sending to their grandkids, provided that gift is worth less than US$100, they won’t have to pay duties and taxes.
He admitted it was a high-trust model and required additional staff training to ensure “checks and balances” were in place.
Handcock said the new tariff would be captured in New Zealand at the time of sending and passed on to US customs.
“That will all be calculated at this end by New Zealand post and charged back (to the sender).”
He anticipated gift sending would be back-up-and-running in the next week to 10 days, and business sending in a matter of weeks, not months.
Small business owners have aired out concerns about the suspension, including Pepper Racoon, a Wellington-based business owner, who said her parcels started being returned from US customs – with no reason given – about two weeks ago.
She said she understood that when shipping resumed, it would be up to businesses to employ a certified brokerage company to collect the tariffs – at a substantial cost.
“One of the company’s I looked at that’s certified to collect these tariffs – to integrate with Shopify, which is what I use – is $4000 US a year.
“I simply can’t afford that on top of all my other operating expenses.”
She said she was trying to come to grips with shutting down shipping to nearly one-fifth of her customers.
I’m not really sure where to go from here,” she said.
South Pacific Berets owner Daan Kolthoff told RNZ about 90% of their customers lived in the US.
He spent his weekend processing refunds, a difficult prospect for such a niche business.
“It’s very painful. I have to contact them and refund their money, because I have no idea how long this will take or what sort of increase in cost there will be,” Kolthoff said.
“I have to cancel a number of orders and make an announcement on the website that US customers for the time being can’t place orders with me. It’s quite bad for my business.”
rnz.co.nz
