Tariffs Update

With planner season now upon us, we all deeply feel the havoc that tariffs are wreaking on stationery lovers’ budgeting practices. Prices have soared, and the “new normal“ ushers in assorted hidden or surprise extra costs such as (hopefully temporary) elimination of standard shipping rates and new exorbitant handling fees by some private shipping companies.

How are tariffs impacting supply? 
This autumn, standard shipping is unavailable in many cases. Most independent artists in Taiwan are at present unable to ship goods to the United States. 

Therefore, I have some orders on hold, including two gorgeous new tapes by TOP Studio. A few others are in transit, and will hopefully arrive soon without complications, including  the latest beauties from NeverLand Studio and Stationery Instinct. See the Coming Soon page for teasers & updates.

From Japan, likewise, certain familiar shipping options have recently been unavailable. The 15% tariff on Japanese imports is actually 20% after handling fees in many cases, at least for now.

In this store, some product listings now include a note indicating that high tariffs raised the price. However, regardless of whether you see that note, it’s a fair assumption that all new releases are now subject to tariffs ranging from 20-35%.

For this reason, we are actively working to make some pre-tariff “golden oldies“ available from the past few years, in case you’d like to explore some lovely tapes you may have missed the first time around.

Note: In addition to surprise hidden handling surcharges on top of the tariffs, shipping services are also wildly miscalculating, for example by treating NTD (Taiwanese dollars) as USD.  DHL this week charged me $53 tariffs on $45 of Japanese tapes purchased from a  major Taiwan stationery store. That's over 100% tariff, instead of the supposed 15%.