Last week, the cross-border e-commerce industry was exposed to intense thunder, and a series of incidents affected sellers’ costs and compliance.
In the UK, 16 major British retailers including Next, Marks & Spencer, and Primark jointly sent a letter to the government demanding a unified tariff of 2.6 pounds on overseas low-value packages and the cancellation of the current tax-free policy for packages under 135 pounds.
This move aims to weaken the price advantage of cross-border platforms such as Shein, Temu, and AliExpress.
If the policy is implemented, the cost for low-customer unit price direct mail sellers will rise significantly.
For sellers, it is a wiser choice to deploy British overseas warehouses in advance, which can reduce cost pressure to a certain extent.
The new EU regulations “(EU) 2026/382” will be officially implemented on July 1, and the tariff exemption policy for cross-border small packages under 150 euros that has been in place for many years will be completely cancelled.
At that time, all low-value parcels exported to Europe will no longer enjoy tax-free treatment, and the cost of direct mail will rise significantly.
Sellers need to re-evaluate pricing strategies in the European market and accelerate the transition to overseas warehouses to adapt to the new policy environment.
Temu was fined 200 million euros by the EU for improper control of illegal goods.
As a “super large online platform” designated by the Digital Services Act, Temu’s compliance regulatory pressure in the EU has suddenly escalated.
This penalty sends a clear signal: platforms must tighten quality control and risk inspections for third-party sellers, and illegal sellers will face more severe joint and several liability.
Sellers also need to be more cautious when choosing a platform to ensure that their operations are compliant.
Amazon has released a heavy signal to Chinese sellers, explicitly prohibiting stores from transferring or pledging privately.
Gray operations such as privately buying and selling accounts and borrowing money with future payments as collateral have been completely blocked, and the binding relationship between stores and registered entities has been officially strengthened.
Sellers must ensure that the account owner is authentic and compliant, otherwise they may face risks such as being unable to transfer and freezing funds.
This requires sellers to strictly abide by the platform rules during the operation process and protect their own rights and interests.
AliExpress has planned three major strategic markets for 2026.
The U.S. site’s May promotion GMV increased by more than 50% year-on-year, and the number of new merchants surged by 120%; the Korean site joined the “Brand+” brand overseas plan, and brand merchants can enjoy an increase of more than 10% in search and push traffic; the Latin American market seized the advantage of Brazil’s federal tax exemption for goods under $50, and accelerated customs clearance through chartered flights.
Sellers can pay attention to the dividends of these emerging channels and expand their business scope.
After the high tariffs in the United States were fully implemented, Temu and SHEIN made strategic adjustments.
On the one hand, it raises the price of goods to pass on costs; on the other hand, it accelerates the transformation to a “semi-managed” model to cope with the pressure of soaring direct mail costs.
This move marks that cross-border e-commerce is moving from extensive low-price distribution to more sophisticated and compliant brand operations.
To sum up, there were intensive incidents in the cross-border circle last week, including British tariffs, the cancellation of EU duty-free, Temu’s sky-high price fines, Amazon blocking store transfers, AliExpress’s new growth pole, Temu/SHEIN’s forced transformation, etc., each of which directly hit the lifeline of sellers’ costs and compliance.
It is recommended that sellers pay close attention to the implementation time of the policy and adjust stocking and compliance strategies in advance to avoid being passively beaten.
