With the booming development of global e-commerce in the past two years, e-commerce platforms from China, such as Temu, SHEIN, and TikTok, have rapidly risen in the European markets.
According to data from the freight consulting company Cargo Facts Consulting, SHEIN, Temu, AliExpress, and TikTok ship more than 10,000 tons of goods overseas daily. Temu ships about 4,000 tons daily, SHEIN ships 5,000 tons, Alibaba ships 1,000 tons, and TikTok ships 800 tons.
The influx of packages has put much pressure on European customs.
Daily Arrival of Nearly 400,000 Packages in Europe
According to staff from European customs, in the past two years, more than 2 billion packages from Temu and SHEIN have arrived in Europe from China, with 400,000 packages arriving daily.
The limited customs staff must inspect millions of packages, and the customs system seems overwhelmed.
Generally, the customs staff in most countries handle the following tasks:
- Customs management, supervising the import and export of goods.
- Collecting tariffs and other taxes. In addition to tariffs, many countries’ customs also collect domestic taxes on imports and exports, such as value-added, excise, and oil taxes.
- Crackdown on smuggling. Customs departments in each country investigate acts of evasion of supervision, commercial deception, and tax evasion, especially the smuggling of goods and items that are prohibited and restricted from entering and exiting.
The continuous flow of goods, along with issues of counterfeit and substandard goods and tariff compliance, has nearly brought European customs staff to the brink of collapse.
The European Union’s Measures
The substantial increase in trade volume and the rising fraud issues have led the European Union to take measures actively.
They are, firstly, abolishing the duty-free policy for goods. Currently, the EU plans to remove the duty-free policy for imported goods under 150 euros, meaning that such packages entering the EU may be subject to tariffs in the future.
Secondly, building a data center will save costs in various aspects. The EU will set up a new Customs Tariff Directorate, responsible for overseeing the EU Customs Data Centre. This is the core of the new system. Over time, the data center will replace EU member states’ existing customs IT infrastructure, saving them up to 2 billion euros in operational costs annually.
Furthermore, calculating tariffs for low-value goods purchased outside the EU will be simplified, reducing the possible thousands of tariff categories to just four. Specifically, the import tariffs for cross-border e-commerce will be simplified according to the HS code into four categories: 5% (for items such as toys and household goods), 8% (for textiles glassware), 12% (for items like cutlery, electrical appliances), and 17% (for items like footwear).
This makes calculating tariffs on small parcels easier, helping platforms and customs authorities better manage the billion e-commerce purchases entering the EU each year and eliminating the possibility of fraud.
Points for Sending Packages into Europe
Due to the influx of packages, the EU customs authorities have had to increase their efforts to ensure that all incoming items comply with safety standards, legal requirements, and tax policies. Customs officials are now conducting more detailed inspections of packages imported from China to ensure the goods’ quality, safety, and compliance.
As a result, Chinese sellers exporting goods to European countries must ensure that their products’ safety, labeling, packaging, and other aspects comply with relevant regulations and standards and undergo compliance assessment procedures to obtain the necessary certifications. This will better adapt to the strict inspections by European customs and reduce operational risks.
Information that may trigger inspection includes:
- Declared value discrepancies: The EU customs system can automatically detect underreporting based on the H.S. CODE. Underreporting can trigger customs inspections.
- Mismatched product names: Including valuable items surreptitiously, combining multiple product names into one declaration, resulting in declared product prices, net weights, and quantities that are higher than actual.
- Quantity discrepancies: The actual quantity does not match the declared quantity, including differences in the total amount and number of pieces.
- Customs code discrepancies: The provided codes significantly do not match the declared elements.
- Counterfeit Products and Intellectual Property Violations: Imitations of branded goods that could lead to infringement issues.