Why Ecommerce Brands Are Getting Crushed (And How to Fight Back)

Let's cut through the noise: 2025 is the year ecommerce brands got absolutely destroyed by tariffs.

We're not talking about some abstract policy debate. We're talking about real money leaving your bank account every single day. A 10% blanket tariff on all imports went live April 5th, with some countries now facing tariffs as high as 145%. Postal shipments from China now face a $100 flat fee per item, regardless of value.

Translation? If you're importing anything, you're bleeding cash.

The Numbers Don't Lie (And They're Brutal)

Here's what's actually happening to brands right now:

The Furniture Bloodbath: 25% tariffs are still crushing furniture imports, with no real savings even after sourcing shifts to Vietnam and Malaysia. One mid-size furniture brand we know went from 18% margins to 3% overnight. They're now selling their inventory at cost just to stay liquid.

The Accessory Apocalypse: Chargers, cables, monitors are getting hammered by up to 25% tariffs that make razor-thin margins unsustainable. A phone accessory brand told us they're paying more in duties than their entire marketing budget.

The Apparel Squeeze: 7.5% tariffs stack painfully on top of already-high base duties in apparel and footwear. Brands are quietly shrinking product sizes and restructuring bundles to hide the price increases, but customers are starting to notice.

The China Catastrophe: Chinese goods now face effective tariffs of up to 145% depending on the HS Code classification. We're watching brands scramble to Vietnam and Bangladesh, but the math still doesn't work.

What Industry Leaders Are Really Saying (Behind Closed Doors)

The public messaging from brands is "we're adapting" and "exploring new partnerships." The private conversations are very different.

Supply Chain Director at a $50M Apparel Brand: "We've run every scenario. Moving to Vietnam saves us maybe 3-4 points, but setup costs and minimums are killing us. We're looking at 18 months before we break even on the move."

CFO at a Home Goods Company: "The 25% furniture tariff isn't theoretical anymore. We either raise prices 30% and lose customers, or we eat the costs and go bankrupt. Those are our options."

Founder of a Tech Accessories Brand: "People don't understand—we were operating on 12% margins before tariffs. Now we're at 2%. Every sale is basically a donation to the government."

The brutal truth? According to the Penn Wharton Budget Model, Trump's tariffs could shrink U.S. GDP by 6% and lower average wages by 5%. For a middle-income household, that's $22,000 in lifetime income loss.

The $5 Billion Problem Nobody's Talking About

Here's the kicker that'll make you sick: U.S. CBP data shows businesses lose over $5 billion annually in unclaimed duty drawback refunds.

Read that again. $5 billion in cash that brands are legally entitled to recover, just sitting there.

Why? Because most brands don't even know duty drawback exists, and those that do think it's too complicated to bother with.

What is Duty Drawback? It's a U.S. Customs program that refunds up to 99% of customs duties, taxes, fees, and tariffs paid on imported goods that are later exported or destroyed.

Translation: If you import products and then sell them internationally, ship returns overseas, or even destroy defective inventory under customs supervision, you can get almost all those duties back.

The Problem: The intricacy of the duty drawback process prevents many businesses from taking full advantage of it. The paperwork is nightmare fuel, the compliance requirements are Byzantine, and most brands would rather eat the losses than deal with CBP bureaucracy.

Why I'm Building Evana (And Why It Matters Now)

I'm personally bootstrapping Evana because I watched too many brilliant brands get destroyed by problems that are 100% solvable.

The Reality: While you're bleeding money on tariffs, there's a legal mechanism to get most of it back. But the current system is designed for Fortune 500 companies with entire compliance teams, not the $5-50M brands that actually need the help.

What We Do: We handle the entire duty drawback process—from documentation to filing to recovery—so brands can focus on growing instead of drowning in customs paperwork.

Who We're Already Helping: Cuts Clothing, Fresh Clean Threads, and dozens more of the best brands in the world are already recovering import duties through proper systems and processes.

The Numbers: The US duty drawback program allows merchants to reclaim 99% of the duties and taxes that were paid. For a brand importing $1M in product annually and paying $100K in duties, that's $99K back in their pocket.

The Three Types of Money You're Leaving on the Table

Unused Merchandise Drawback: When a company exports a good in essentially the same condition in which it was imported, that good could qualify as unused merchandise, making it eligible for a duty drawback. Think international orders or excess inventory sold to international distributors.

Manufacturing Drawback: When imported materials are used in the production of goods that are subsequently exported. If you import components and assemble products that get shipped internationally, you're eligible.

Destroyed Merchandise Drawback: Companies can also destroy unused merchandise under the supervision of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Even defective products destroyed under customs supervision qualify for refunds.

The Evana Difference: Why We're Different From Everyone Else

Speed: While traditional customs brokers take 6-18 months to process claims, we've streamlined the system to get filed in weeks, not quarters.

Automation: We've built technology that automatically tracks your imports and exports, matching them for optimal drawback claims without manual paperwork nightmares.

No Upfront Costs: We work on a success fee basis. If we don't recover money for you, you don't pay us. Simple.

Real Brands, Real Results: We're not some theoretical service. Cuts Clothing and Fresh Clean Threads are already using our system to recover substantial amounts in import duties.

The Bottom Line: Stop Donating to the Government

The Math is Simple: If you're importing $500K annually and paying $50K in duties, you could be recovering $49,500 per year through proper duty drawback claims. Over five years, that's nearly $250K back in your business.

The Reality is Harsh: Most international sellers lose their refunds because they do not track returns with drawback claims in mind. They're literally donating money to the government because they don't have the systems in place.

The Opportunity is Now: With tariffs skyrocketing and margins getting crushed, every dollar of duty recovery matters more than ever. The brands that figure this out first will have a massive competitive advantage.

The Choice is Yours: Keep hemorrhaging cash on tariffs while your competitors recover theirs, or get ahead of the curve and start treating duty recovery as the profit center it actually is.

What's Next?

Tariffs aren't going away. If anything, they're getting worse. The smart money is on brands that build duty recovery into their core operations, not as an afterthought.

We're not trying to sell you anything—we're trying to keep great brands from going bankrupt over solvable problems.

If you're ready to stop donating to customs and start recovering what's legally yours, let's talk.

Ready to recover what you're owed?

Email us at [email protected] or reach out directly. We'll show you exactly how much money you're leaving on the table and help you get it back.

P.S. - You have five years from the import date to file duty drawback claims. That means even if you imported products in 2020-2024, you might still be able to recover those duties. The clock is ticking, but the money is still recoverable.

The tariff crisis is real. The solutions exist. The question is whether you'll act before your competitors do.