Tariffs, surcharges and border rules can change while your goods are still at sea, and the freight contract rarely says who pays. Wayfindr’s Chris Crutchley sets out four ways exporters can protect their margins when that happens.
In July 2026, the US introduced a 12.5 percent tariff on most New Zealand goods. It replaced a temporary US tariff that was about to expire, so it wasn’t a complete shock. It still had exporters rethinking their pricing. Add fuel prices that keep rising and falling, and shipping routes that sometimes have to change, and it’s hard to say what a shipment will really cost.
I see many exporters spend months choosing a market and winning customers there. I believe they should spend just as much time asking whether their logistics can cope with the next change.
There are four things to think about:
- Border rules change faster than freight contracts, so it pays to agree up front who pays when costs rise.
- Landed cost (the full price of getting a product to the customer’s door) shows what you actually get from an order. Freight cost only tells part of the story.
- Keeping stock closer to customers can speed up delivery and make returns easier, if demand justifies the cost.
- An agile logistics setup lets you switch routes and providers quickly when conditions change.
1. The rules change faster than your logistics contracts
A freight contract explains how your goods get from A to B and what it costs to move them. It says nothing about what the destination country will charge when the goods arrive, or what paperwork it will require. Those rules can change between the day you agree a price and the day the goods land. When they do, someone has to bear the extra cost or delay, and the freight contract doesn’t always say who.
The US tariff is the most obvious example, but it’s not the only one. From 1 July 2026, the EU ended duty-free entry for parcels valued up to €150. It was replaced with a flat €3 customs duty for each category of goods, so an order with two categories already adds €6. But tariffs are only part of the picture. Certification, labelling and customs processes also change, adding more costs.
Extra charges usually fall on you or your customer. Your sales terms decide who covers what once the goods cross the border. If your terms say nothing about extra duties, you might only find out who pays when an unexpected bill arrives. That gets costly for brands. It also leaves consumers with a sour taste when they’re hit with extra charges.
Sudden changes can turn an export market unprofitable, especially if they happen overnight. I recommend reviewing your markets and products regularly, and checking that each product still meets its target margin.
Chris Crutchley.
2. Landed costs matter more than freight costs
Calculating that margin often exposes a second problem: the freight quote rarely decides it. Freight costs are easy to compare, but the better number is landed cost. That’s the total it takes to get a product to your customer’s door.
A cheap shipping rate can be wiped out by handling charges, storage fees, delays and returned goods. Where those costs land depends on who you sell to. A consumer can be hit with a surprise charge at the door, and even a small one, like the EU duty, tends to stick in their memory. With business customers, the risk usually sits in the delivery terms, which can leave you paying unexpected costs.
Timing makes this harder to pin down. Carriers have added and changed fuel and disruption surcharges often this year, so a quote can be out of date by the time you ship. While your goods are in transit, a market may add a new duty or a shipping lane may close. Rerouting adds to the bill. Peak season brings extra carrier surcharges too, forcing you or your customers to absorb the extra costs.
Luckily, not every change works against you. Much of New Zealand’s trade into the EU can now enter duty-free under the NZ-EU free trade agreement, as long as your goods meet its origin rules about where a product has to be made or sourced.
3. Put stock closer to customers when the numbers justify it
Once you know what an order really costs, it’s hard to ignore how much of that comes from distance. Shipping every order from New Zealand, or even from a single centralised warehouse elsewhere, keeps things simple. But overseas customers wait longer and returns are a hassle, which can hold back growth.
The alternative is to ship stock in bulk to warehouses in your main markets and fulfil orders from there. Delivery gets faster, and returns get easier. Stock that has already cleared customs can be less exposed to future import duty changes, although other rules may still apply.
This approach has upfront costs. You commit cash before the sale, pay storage fees, and carry the risk of unsold stock. I think the decision should come down to demand, cost and risk. Start with markets where orders are steadily growing, then compare costs to see what suits your brand.
4. Build an agile logistics setup
Whichever way you manage your stock, the bigger issue is how easily you can adapt when plans change. That mostly depends on how your logistics is set up. Exporters often use separate providers for freight, customs, storage and last-mile delivery. Each may do its job well, but when a route or border rule changes, someone has to coordinate the response across all of them.
That setup works well when you operate from one warehouse in one market. A good third-party logistics provider (3PL) can store and ship products effectively. The challenges start as you add markets, because each one brings more providers, contracts and rules. The hard part is finding reliable providers in each market and getting them to work together when things change.
A fourth-party logistics provider (4PL) can reduce some of this complexity. One provider runs your logistics as a single network, so routes and providers can change without you starting over in every new market.
Control what you can
Exporters have no say in what Washington, Brussels or the oil market decides next. Whatever comes will land on everyone selling into that market at the same time, so what sets one exporter apart is how quickly they can respond. That’s where agility matters. It’s the one part of the equation you can control through your choice of routes, stock locations and logistics providers.
My view is that agility belongs in the plan for every market. Logistics is often treated as the part of the business that moves orders from A to B, but it also decides how freely you can move stock when the world moves around you.
