# The End of the Cheap Parcel

By GLOSKU Research · Jun 10, 2025 · Market Updates, Cross-border
Canonical: https://glosku.com/the-end-of-the-cheap-parcel/

In May the United States removed the de minimis exemption for goods arriving from China and Hong Kong. Parcels valued under eight hundred dollars, which had entered duty free for years, now clear as ordinary imports.

For anyone whose model depended on that exemption, this is not a cost increase. It is a different business.

## What the exemption was actually paying for

The rule let a seller ship one unit directly from a factory to a consumer and skip duty, formal entry fees and domestic warehousing in a single move. A brand importing the same garment in bulk paid a base duty, additional tariffs on many categories, several hundred dollars in entry costs per shipment, and monthly storage on whatever it held.

That gap was never a small efficiency. It was the reason direct-from-factory pricing looked impossible to match. Removing it does not level the field so much as reveal what the field always cost.

## The second-order effects matter more

The obvious consequence is that low-value parcels get more expensive. The more interesting one is that per-parcel economics stop rewarding fragmentation. When every unit carries entry cost, consolidation becomes worth doing, and consolidation requires forecasting, warehousing and a tolerance for holding inventory.

In other words, the discipline that cross-border sellers spent a decade avoiding is now the cheaper option. Brands that already ran proper inventory planning have found themselves unexpectedly well positioned.

## Why this pushes attention toward Asia-to-Asia trade

Selling from Asia into the United States got harder this quarter. Selling within Asia did not change at all.

That asymmetry has come up in nearly every planning conversation we have had since May. A brand manufacturing in the region and shipping to Western consumers is exposed to a policy environment it does not control. The same brand selling into [Southeast Asian and North Asian demand](https://glosku.com/products/) is shipping shorter distances, under stable rules, into markets growing faster than the one it was defending.

We are not suggesting anyone abandon the United States. We are pointing out that the case for regional depth got stronger in May, and that it will probably keep getting stronger.

## Sources

- [Fact sheet: President Donald J. Trump closes de minimis exemptions to combat China's role in America's synthetic opioid crisis](https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-closes-de-minimis-exemptions-to-combat-chinas-role-in-americas-synthetic-opioid-crisis/), The White House, Apr 2025
- [Temu says it's only shipping within the US. That doesn't mean the products are made here](https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/03/business/temu-shipping-us-china-de-minimis-tariffs), CNN Business, May 3, 2025