Chinese New Year + Dec 18 shipping deadlines | 80/20 of Ecom 11/21/25

This week’s edition of the 80/20 e-commerce for November 21st, 2025:

Holiday shipping deadlines are set. What you guys have to know from UPS, FedEx, and USPS, so you can beat the deadlines for the holidays.

Also, new opportunity for Grade and Resell for FBA sellers. Make some money back from those returns. They are going to come in the avalanche after the holidays.

In terms of shipping, ocean freight rates stabilized after volatile Q3. However, Asia West Coast rates are climbing 48% last week. Find out the details.

And we have an exclusive interview with 8-figure seller Bernie Thompson on how Jordan Thompson is dealing with the tariffs to stay profitable in this week’s edition of 80/20 e-commerce.

First off, Black Friday is right around the corner. In 2025, we are now set with all of the holiday shipping deadlines for USPS, UPS Ground, and FedEx.

Please see the main deadlines below, and make sure you don’t miss them:

USPS Deadlines:

- Ground Advantage: December 18

- First-Class Mail: December 19

- Priority Mail: December 20

UPS Deadlines:

- UPS Ground: December 19

- UPS 3 Day Select: December 22

- UPS 2nd Day Air: December 23

FedEx Deadlines:

- FedEx Ground: December 19

- FedEx Express Saver: December 22

- FedEx 2Day: December 23

The key thing is December 18th and 19th are the key cut-off dates to finalize your inventory and fulfillment strategy.

Takeaway: Plan your inventory and fulfillment strategy around these carrier deadlines to ensure customer satisfaction during the critical holiday season. Consider using FBA to leverage Amazon’s logistics network, or communicate these deadlines clearly to customers if using FBM.

Second, Amazon is expanding its FBA Grade and Resell service to more sellers and categories. This service automatically evaluates return items and resells them, potentially as used or open box.

This way, FBA sellers can recover money from customer returns instead of having them destroyed or returned. Amazon will handle the grading, pricing, and relisting of your returns.

So, on one hand, takeaway: this is a significant opportunity for you to reduce your losses from return items. You can enroll your ASINs that are eligible in this program, Grade and Resell, to automatically recover value.

On the other hand, Amazon’s gonna decide on the grade and how much money that they’re gonna sell it for.

So, you can see the screenshot of the table and the processing fees below:

Processing Fees:

- Standard-size items (small): 16 oz or less - $1.50

- Standard-size items (large): 21 lb or less - $1.80

- Oversize and special handling items (small/medium): 151 lb or less - $2.65

- Oversize and special handling items (large/special): Over 151 lb - $4.10

Example Recovery Values (Home & Garden product, $30 new item price):

|Condition |Recovery %|Used-Item Price|Net Recovery|

|----------|----------|---------------|------------|

|Like new  |95%       |$28.50         |$15.67      |

|Very good |85%       |$25.50         |$13.12      |

|Good      |80%       |$24.00         |$11.85      |

|Acceptable|75%       |$22.50         |$10.57      |

Check out the link from Amazon for more details.

Thirdly, ocean freight rates are stabilizing after a volatile Q3. According to the Freightos Baltic Index, containers from Asia to U.S. West Coast climbed 48% last week to over $2,900 for a 40-foot full container, mostly based on general rate increases that took effect November 1st.

So, ocean freight rates are stabilizing in Q4, and capacity adjustments and normalized demand patterns are contributing to stability, but the rates remain high compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Takeaway: Just make sure to pay attention to your shipping rates, talk to your freight forwarders, and especially anticipate pre-Chinese New Year shipments. More stable ocean freight rates provide better cost predictability for inventory planning and can help sellers more accurately forecast landed costs and margins for Q1 2026 inventory orders.

In addition, sourcing alert!  As we are approaching Thanksgiving, this is one of the key cutoff dates for shipping for sourcing, especially if you’re sourcing from China.

Given the fact that Trump and President Xi have agreed on a 47% tariff rate for Chinese imports into the U.S., now is the time to make sure to place your orders to meet the Chinese New Year deadlines.

The key takeaway is to review and place those orders NOW. Otherwise, you may miss the Chinese New Year shipping dates in early Feb 2026!

If you do need some help, I have limited capacity in my sourcing request program. If you would like to potentially connect with my partner in China, who’s one of the top sourcing agents in the world, fill out this form.

Thanks.

Gary

On the podcast front, we have a special interview with 8-figure seller Bernie Thompson. Find out how he is navigating the tariff increases, the ups and downs, his philosophy, and how he competes against Chinese competitors in this exclusive interview.

Learn more in the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcbusMBSLQo

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In Case You Missed It

Here are the articles from last week’s edition (11/14/25):