‘I can’t order 100 pieces of junk for $ 15?’: How Trump’s Customs will hit Fast Mode-Released | E-commerce

VIVI Armacost loves Temu. She uses the Chinese online marketplace to buy craft supplies for her purse hobby. “You can get purse details and hardware for Cent and Ear,” said Armacost, who is 24 and lives in New York. She says it looks like “basically everything” in her apartment comes from Temu.

Donald Trump’s 10% duty on China-made goods sold to the United States, which came into effect early Tuesday morning, can change her shopping habits.

The tariff closes a trade hole that allowed fast fashion companies such as Temu and Shein to send packages under $ 800 to the US duty free; This loophole, called “de minimus”, has been criticized of both political parties in recent years. Tuesday, Reuters reported That Shein and Temu now probably raise prices, like Amazon’s Haul, a new e-commerce app that imports products from China-based sellers.

Buyers are concerned that the tariff gets in the way of their retail therapy.

“Trying to get the last Temu order in before Trump puts another duty on China,” exceeded Armacost, who works in advice and also makes comedy videos on Tiktok, a post on Monday showing her her frenetically writing a Computer, hacker movie style. It was mostly a joke, but she has friends who got one last Temu race. “My friend Piper got plenty of apartments during a customs at the last minute,” she said.

Temu-AS surpassed Amazon as the most downloaded shopping app in the 2023 and shein is loved by both the overly trendy and the obsessive sparse. While Shein is primarily known for clothing, Temu also sells makeup, home goods and decor. These products are cheap – just over $ 4 for a pair of women’s sneakers on Temu, or $ 1.45 for bracelets at TEMU – but of questionable quality. Inevitably, many end up at landfills.

“A lot of things actually come far less than you expect,” Armacost said. “I bought a desk lamp, except that it can fit in my hands.”

In the months before Trump joined, shoppers urged each other to fill Temu and Shein, in case the new administration followed its promise to tax US trading partners. “Kinda feels emo bc this might be the last good black friday for a while because of the tariffs,” wrote a tiktok user in a Cut. “Better Collect Your ‘Vintage Shein’ because they are likely to go for $ 100 next year. ‘”

Two days after the election, fashion writer Amy Odell warned readers of price increases in a post to her backrow -substack entitled: “Trump won. So shop now. “Susan Scafidi, a lawyer and founder of Fordham’s Fashion Law Institute, said to Odell,” Everything gets more expensive, which is a little crazy when you realize that a lot of the Trump appeal was in terms of the economy. “

Could the tariff kill fast fashion, an industry defined by wasted over -consumption, as we know it? No, says Margaret Bishop, a textile and clothing specialist and professor at New York’s Parsons School of Design and Fashion Institute of Technology. “If anything, I think these tariffs will strengthen the fast fashion of customers,” she said. “If everything costs more, especially food, transport and housing, they will have to cut down somewhere.

“Americans have a real hunger for new fashion, so they will shop down to continue to buy things. If a $ 1 package T-shirts on TEMU becomes $ 2 per Package, it’s still cheaper than spending $ 20 for a pair of t-shirts that are better made, ”she continued.

Sheng Lu, a professor of fashion and clothing studies at the University of Delaware, agreed that tariffs would not “fundamentally change” the love of Americans to a good one, if outlined, deal. While small businesses will carry most of the pain of tariffs – due to supply chain Snarls or the fact that Americans can’t use as much – larger companies like Shein and Temu tend to absorb costs.

“These companies are resourceful,” Lu said. “My more immediate concern is that small and medium -sized businesses do not survive or will face significant challenges.”

In 2023, an American Congress report Alleged that there was an “extremely high risk” that Temu used forced labor in its supply chain and that both Shein and Temu avoided US human rights reviews. (Shein denied these claims at the time while TEMU did not comment on the report.) A recent report From the Swiss lawyer group Public Eye found out that some Shein workers endure 75-hour work week. (Shein told the BBC that it was “working hard” to tackle the questions raised in the report.)

The fast fashion industry is also Synonym with high carbon emissions and pollution.

Lu fears that duty will aggravate these issues. “If they have to pay more for customs duties, but at the same time make their prices competitive, this is not good news for workers or the environmental impact because companies want more incentive to cut corners,” he said.

Armacost knows that these e-commerce giants represent the worst of Americans’ desire for excess. “But also at the same time to use Do Stimulate the economy, ”she said. “In response to the idea that it is a good thing if people stop ordering so much random things, I say,” What is the poenget of living in a country if I can’t order 100 pieces of junk for $ 15? “