UPDATE – Sept 9th 2025
I’m now shipping to the USA again!
Thanks for your patience! 
Unfortunately, this post comes bearing sad news. You will likely have seen many small businesses and makers, like myself, sharing similar updates in recent days.
Unfortunately, as of this Friday 15th August I will temporarily be unable to ship physical products to my lovely customers in the USA.
As you can imagine, this is a huge kick in the teeth for me, I know it will have a BIG impact on my small business – and I know that for you, my loyal beading friends, it will be disappointing too.
I’m hoping that this change is temporary and that I will be able to reinstate shipping in the future.
What does this mean?
- If you live in the US, you will no longer be able to order physical items such as kits, printed patterns or bead supplies from me at pinkhot.co.uk
- I will be accepting orders up to 8pm BST on Friday 15th August
- If there is a kit, class materials pack or other items you have had your eye on, I recommend ordering them without delay!
- This does not affect digital products such as PDFs, online classes and Zoom workshops. You will continue to be able to purchase these after this date.
Why is this change happening?
As you may have heard, from August 29th, the de minimus exemption for goods valued under $800 entering the US is ending. This is the threshold that allowed for lower cost imports to not have tariffs applied.
This means that moving forward, ALL packages will have a tariff applied to them. So, regardless of whether you place a small order or a big one, you will be charged an import tax.
This tax percentage will be charged based on the country of the origin of the product, not where it is being shipped from. So, in my case, although the package will be sent from the UK, the products may originate from Japan, Czech Republic, China or elsewhere!
From the information available at the moment, my understanding is that customers could be faced with an import fee of between $80-$200. There may also be handling fees applied, but this isn’t clear.
Chaos and confusion
There is very little information available at present, and for an independent sole trader like me, it’s hard to wade through the rules and regulations.
As there is no way to accurately predict what fee would apply for the next few months, or the extent of any delays caused by a sudden increase in packages going through customs, I won’t be able to guarantee anything in regards costs or delivery times.
I also worry about packages getting lost or me ending up out of pocket, for example, if a customer did not accept the fee because they were not expecting it or it was larger than anticipated.
To be safe, I have made this hard decision – and will not be sending any physical orders to the USA until the situation changes or a minimum again applies.
Of course, if you are happy to pay the fees, then I will, of course be willing to ship to you. Just drop me an email and we can arrange this privately.
I’d like to take this moment to say a HUGE thank you to you for your custom and support. I really value each and every one of you.
Happy beading!
Chloe x