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Invest in POD to avoid the new US tariffs + 3 more tips

Let's untangle this "de minimis" chaos + 4 tips on what creators, artists, and makers can do now.

Petra Gönczi

07 Sep 2025 — 4 min read

Photo by Markus Winkler / Unsplash

Hi! 👋

Let's untangle this "de minimis" chaos.

Welcome (back)! 🤗

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Story of the week 🗞️

This has been the first full week of seeing how Trump's newest tariff moves impacted creators and artists.

Before 29th August, you could ship items to the US worth up to US$800 without any tariffs, based on "de minimis" rules, a Latin term referring to items too minor to worry about. That exemption came to an end.

Duties now will be imposed either at reciprocal rates, ranging from 10% to even 50% at the moment, or a duty ranging from $80 to $200 per item, depending on the effective tariff rate applicable to the country of origin of the product.As a creator pointed out on TikTok, a customer could pay a random $80 flat fee for a $3 order. That's probably an instant "abandon cart" situation.

Since the increased cost must either be covered by postal services or passed onto customers, dozens of countries have suspended postal services to the US to figure out how to adjust to this new system.

What does this mean for creators?

Based on my research, some of them cannot send packages now to the US if they live in a country where the postal service is currently suspended to the US. Simple and sad as that.

Others had to make the decision themselves to stop shipping to the US, as they're also trying to figure out the next steps, like which couriers could help them in this situation, if any, and how much they would need to raise their prices to cover all the extras.

This new tariff move from the Trump administration threatens artists' livelihood as raising prices is never customers' favourite thing, and as we know, it's especially hard for creative businesses to "justify" why people should buy from them. Particularly when there's a dip in the economy, and just in general.

What can creators do now?

Introduce a "HOLD" option in your webshop, like ceramic artist Kness, whom I interviewed for The Creators' Diary. The majority of her customers are in the US, and so she's heavily affected by this "de minimis" chaos. In her recent post, she said that people from the US can place an order with her, and she will hold their order and add shipping fees later when the air clears out (hopefully).
Check the status of your postal carrier of choice, and assess commercial carrier options as a backup for international shipments. I've seen many creators doing test shipments with smaller items like this lately, so they'll know for sure if it's worth signing on with a new carrier.
Get creative: Kness, who lives and works in Canada, suggests that if anybody can safely visit Canada from the US, she's happy to deliver it there, or, if they have relatives in another country they're planning to visit, the order could go to their address for them to pick it up later. You could consider this or a similar option, too.
Time to invest in print-on-demand? If you haven't already, it might be a good time to start selling some POD products to avoid delays and tariffs. With POD services, you provide the design, but the service handles the manufacturing and shipment of the final product. These services often have warehouses and other facilities in several countries and can easily avoid the tariff we talk about now.

👉 Theprintspace already confirmed that their creators, who wish to sell to US customers, don't need to do anything regarding the "de minimis" situation: "We produce and ship locally within the U.S. from our Brooklyn production house, so your orders never cross a border. That means no surprise fees, no delays, and no customs hassle."

Creator quote of the week 📌

Here's Kness's post about this tariff topic. Click on the image if you'd like to see her full post. As I've seen in her Stories, she's currently doing a test shipping with ChitChats that handles parcels between Canada and the US. In case you're in Canada, too, you might want to look into that, as well!