The Impact on eCommerce Businesses from Countries Pausing Shipments to the US
Justin Irvine, Guest Author
·September 2, 2025
When the postal lane wobbles, you don’t stop—you pivot.
If Australia Post pauses postal deliveries to the US, the first job isn’t to panic. It’s to keep your promise to customers while protecting margin. We’ve already done this work in the UK/EU when everyone moved to DDP—same muscle, different lane.
What I’d do today if I were you
By lunchtime, be connected to a commercial-clearance option. If you’re a smaller shipper, plug into Shippit, Sendle, Interparcel, Easyship—whoever can light you up fastest with express and standard services. This isn’t about finding the “forever” partner; it’s about avoiding interruption.
Flip your checkout to DDP. Give customers one landed price and remove the surprise at the door. Use Zonos, Avalara, or Shopify’s native duties/taxes if you’re under nexus. And remember: what you collect from the customer is not what you declare to the carrier. Keep the paperwork clean.
Don’t mis-declare. Ever. Fines per parcel and the risk of being blacklisted isn’t a slap on the wrist—it’s business-ending if you make a habit of it.
Tidy your data. Every SKU should have:
- MID (manufacturer ID),
- COO (country of origin),
- HTS 10-digit classification.
Lock this into a “golden record” and stop letting one-off edits creep in via spreadsheets and late-night fixes. If you’re shipping Australian-made goods, tariffs are typically lower (10%), but you still remove those amounts from the carrier declaration when you’ve already collected duties/taxes at checkout.
Tell customers what’s happening. A simple banner and a line on PDPs—“We’re dispatching via commercial carriers under DDP. No surprise fees on delivery.”—beats silence every time.
What happens next (weeks, not months)
Your structure depends on volume and cash position:
- Under ~30 orders/day: stay on an aggregator + DDP. Keep it simple, keep it compliant, watch landed cost by SKU.
- Around 30–50/day: keep the aggregator and pilot an IOR/MOR solution (Passport, OpenBorder) on select lanes. You’re paying for simplicity while you learn.
- 50–150/day: run a hybrid. Trunk from AU to the US, trial a single-node US 3PL for your fast movers, and keep AU as the fallback. It’s the best way to learn without betting the farm.
- 150+/day: start behaving like a domestic US shipper. Commit to a US 3PL (or two nodes if your heatmap justifies it), build a returns flow that doesn’t punish customers, and automate sales tax. You don’t need a US entity to start, but inventory on US soil creates obligations—treat this as a finance project, not just an ops project.
Global-e and other 3B2C platforms sit in their own lane: heavier lift, more structure, potential tariff advantages when set up correctly, and real tax implications in AU and the US. Worth it at scale, not worth it if you’re still proving product-market-channel fit.
How you’ll know it’s working
- Your DDP calculations are accurate and boring.
- Your on-time delivery rate is steady even as you swap lanes.
- Cost per delivered order is measured by lane and service level, not averaged into mush.
- Your classification is audit-ready, with quarterly checks on top movers.
- Customers stop asking, “Will I get a fee at the door?”
None of this is glamorous. It’s discipline: clean data, clear pricing, honest declarations, and a lane structure that matches your volume.
Bottom line
This isn’t the end of US shipping for non-US brands. It’s a forced upgrade. The teams that move quickly to commercial clearance, tighten their data, and treat DDP as standard will keep margin intact and trust high. We’ve done it before. We’ll do it again.
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Book a demoAbout the author
Justin Irvine is the co-founder of The Aggregate Co., the trusted behind-the-scenes operations partner for many of Australia’s most recognizable eCommerce brands. With over 25 years in freight forwarding—specializing in global airfreight—Justin now focuses on global eCommerce solutions, specifically fulfillment, inventory management, carrier negotiations and cost reduction. He and his team of experts work closely with innovative brands to develop effective commercial strategies and fuel international growth. If you’d like an introduction to Justin, please reach out to partnerships@loopreturns.com.
Loop and The Aggregate Co. partner to give merchants a full spectrum of operational support—Loop drives efficiency in returns and post-purchase experiences, while The Aggregate Co. provides expert global logistics consulting such as carrier negotiations to lower parcel costs. Together, we help brands unlock meaningful savings and a more resilient logistics strategy without adding complexity to their teams
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