arknightshipship

        For orders with multiple parcels, when will I collect the additional customs duty for your order? That depends on when the Chinese logistics provider sends me the shipping invoice. To be honest, the logistics company I work with that specializes in shipping parcels to Europe always takes a long time—usually over a month—before they bill me for the shipping fees. The logistics provider’s invoice itemizes the shipping costs and customs duties incurred for each parcel, so I will collect the customs duty from you based on that document.

        If you want to hear me vent about the “various issues” mentioned above, you can keep reading: First, most customers are used to settling all payments in one go, but it is quite difficult to have everyone choose the correct customs duty amount themselves: every order is different, and the items in an order are sometimes made up of pre-sale items and non-pre-sale items, which need to be packed and shipped in separate batches—in that case, the customs duty also needs to be collected in several separate payments. But not all non-pre-sale items can be packed together; for example, plush/doll-type items will most likely need to be packed separately from acrylic standee-type items, and the same applies to pre-sale items. The actual packing situation for orders is fairly complex, so it is not realistic to have everyone choose the customs duty amount matching the number of parcels themselves.

        Second, some customers have reported that the customs clearance process for parcels shipped via EMS is quite cumbersome and the costs are quite high. In one case, they only bought one fridge magnet, but in the end had to pay customs duty equal to about half the price of the fridge magnet. Issues related to logistics channels are also quite complex. The handling fee for the EMS channel is much cheaper than that of the DHL channel, but for parcels shipped via the DHL channel, the Chinese logistics provider will pay part of the customs duty on behalf of me and the customer. For certain EU countries, such as Finland, France, etc., their DHL channel handling fee is around 70 RMB, while the EMS channel handling fee is around 35 RMB. Combined with the website’s free shipping promotion, if I choose the DHL channel, I will definitely lose money on shipping. But customers can save some money on customs duties.

        Third, the free shipping promotion on the website may need to be adjusted. Orders combining two small items always make me lose money on shipping. I have kept this free shipping promotion based on the idea of losing money on promotions for marketing. The prices of various small items in the official flagship store are not cheap. Take the recent pre-sale item Plush Charm – Innocence as an example. The original price of this plush is 38 CNY. If a US customer wants to buy two plushies, my cost would be 38 + 38 + 8 (domestic shipping) + 35 (US channel handling fee) + 0.2 × 105 (shipping) = 140 CNY. I priced the plush at $9.98. If the customer uses a discount code to buy them, they can get these two plushies for 18 (discounted price) + 5 (fixed US shipping fee) = $23. Based on this simple calculation, I can earn 13 CNY from selling these two plushies. But I must not forget the platform’s commission. As a result, I may only earn a few yuan, or I may lose a few yuan. The same applies to other badges, postcards, and acrylic charms. Do you remember what I said earlier about the handling fee for the European DHL channel? If I ship these two plushies for a French customer, I will directly lose dozens of yuan. Fortunately, this rarely happens. Most people buy several items, and packing these items together for shipment can save some shipping costs. Most of my profit comes from these saved shipping costs. Overall, my website is still profitable. Maybe I can learn from the pricing method of the official international website. But whenever I think that I am actually making a profit, I don’t want to change this promotion again. The current operation of the website is roughly like a piece of code that has various bugs but still runs. 😅 I need some time to think about these issues more. After the new policy is implemented, I will explain it on the website.

         For orders that have not yet been shipped, the customs duty will be collected at the time of shipment. If anyone wishes to cancel their previous pre-order, I can accept the cancellation. If you wish to cancel your order, please send an email to: support@arknightshipship.com. My guess is that this new tariff policy is mainly targeting various low-priced goods on Temu, and anime/merchandise items are just collateral damage. 😓

         Lastly, thank you all again for your constant support for my website!🙏