Sales on Shein, Temu, and AliExpress have fallen sharply in Germany, while customs authorities across Europe report fewer small shipments. The early results suggest the charge is changing trade, although European retailers have yet to see clear benefits.
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In Germany, combined sales on Shein, Temu, and AliExpress dropped by 35.5 per cent year on year to €566m in the third quarter, according to e-commerce association BEVH. Their combined share of German online retail fell from 5.3 per cent in the second quarter to 3.1 per cent. The consumer survey measures spending, providing evidence of falling purchases beyond changes in customs declarations.
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Italy recorded a 39 per cent decline in low-value parcel imports in July–August compared with May–June, according to figures from Customs Agency Director Roberto Alesse cited in an Italian parliamentary research dossier.
In Poland, Finance Ministry figures supplied to PAP showed customs declarations falling from 4.24m in June to 2.11m in July, a monthly decline of 50.1 per cent.
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The pattern extends elsewhere. Belgian authorities reported 53 per cent fewer low-value declarations in July than a year earlier. Czech customs figures reported by ČTK showed declared items falling by 81 per cent between June and September, from 13.6m to 2.6m. The figures cover different periods and counting methods, so they illustrate the scale of the adjustment rather than a ranking of declining demand.
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The duty is also changing how goods reach customers. Dutch Customs reported a 46 per cent fall in average e-commerce declarations in its initial July–August comparison with the first-half average, while standard declarations rose by 20 per cent. Its August figures were provisional and covered only the period to 25 August. Retailers appeared to be importing more goods in bulk and storing them in European warehouses before dispatching orders to consumers.
That shift can help customs authorities inspect imports. Dutch Customs Director-General Nannette van Schelven said fewer individual parcels were arriving directly for consumers, “making it easier for us to check whether products are safe”.
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Product safety remains a concern: as EU Perspectives reported, the Commission has accepted Temu’s plan to strengthen safeguards after tests exposed unsafe toys and chargers on its platform.
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Tariffs alone are not enough
BEVH attributed the pressure on low-margin Asian products to higher import charges. However, weakening confidence and rising energy costs also weighed on spending, while domestic retailers had not benefited from their competitors’ decline. “Tariffs alone are not enough,” BEVH chief executive Alien Mulyk said, calling for stronger market surveillance and enforcement.
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Yes, as I said, 200% markup. Also very limited selection and usually low grade stuff… nice tea is a niche product in Europe, people are fine with the tea bag dust, with blends and/or teas with stuff added including artificial aromas (and that’s fine, but I have higher standards). Direct shipping ends up being cheaper because of the crazy overhead of operating a small business in almost all EU countries and the crazy bureaucracy around being a business selling food (and tea counts as a product that needs to be approved). Japan Post sends stuff by boat, cheaper than a lot of EU postal services by weight, it takes forever but I don’t care.
The risk when I import myself is mostly pesticides that would be illegal in the EU, which may or may not be safe anyway. It’s not like EU approved pesticides are necessarily safe or the checks are sufficient to guarantee I never buy anything with illegal products from the supermarket. I’m not too worried about heavy metal pollution in the soil when I buy from Japanese farms.
The 2€ per HS code starting today is for all parcels. The 3€ from summer were for <150€ parcels.
Yeah, the cost of processing a parcel was in 2025 between 7 to 12 Euro on top what Chinese sellers paid for postal.
So you ordering little parcels of tea, and whining about having to pay a little to deliver them (still below average cost of delivery) grind my gears.
What’s your source on that? With the volumes in France that would mean the post office is spending billions extra (800 million “small parcels” in France in 2025 according to France Info).
The UPU stopped letting China pay a lot less in 2016 by increasing the fees for four years and since 2020 the Chinese postal services can be charged up to 70% of what a local parcel would cost (according to BFMTV)
If your gears are grinding you can go to the people subsidising postage, but I have doubts it costs nearly as much as 7€ per package, that would be more than for local parcels in most countries.
And the new fees are not for delivery, they’re extra taxes, no guarantee they go to safety checks or post offices.