US court strikes down sweeping tariffs; importers eye refunds and the 'first sale' workaround
On May 28, 2025, the US Court of International Trade unanimously struck down the administration's sweeping tariffs on dozens of countries, finding the measures went beyond what the International Emergency Economic Powers Act allows a president to do. The affected measures include 10 to 25 percent duties on Canadian and Mexican products, 20 percent duties on Chinese goods linked to drug trafficking allegations plus a 10 percent retaliatory measure, a 10 percent blanket tariff on all trading partners, and paused reciprocal tariffs of 20 to 50 percent that had been set for July 9. Importers may be eligible for refunds on duties already paid, though the Justice Department has filed an appeal.
Even before the ruling, savvy importers were cutting duty costs with a legal mechanism called the first sale rule, in effect since a 1988 court decision and codified in US Customs regulations. When goods change hands multiple times before reaching the US, importers can calculate duty on the first, lower sale price rather than the final one. If a factory sells a shirt to a distributor for $5 and the distributor resells it to a US importer for $10, properly documenting the first sale means duties are paid on $5. Brands including Moncler and Traeger are cited as users, and consultants say interest is exploding. The requirements: at least two arms-length sales, goods clearly destined for the US, solid documentation of the factory sale, and suppliers willing to disclose the original invoice price. If the ruling holds, tariffs could shrink further; if overturned, the first sale rule remains the best legal backup.
Social commerce now drives 17.11 percent of total global e-commerce sales as of 2025, and by some estimates already accounts for 20 percent. Worldwide revenue reached close to $700 billion in 2024, a 23 percent annual increase. Thailand, Colombia and China lead adoption, with nine out of ten internet users there buying directly from social platforms, and in China, India, Thailand and the UAE more than 70 percent of online shoppers participate in livestream buying events.
ChatGPT is reshaping product discovery: it accounts for 64.6 percent of all LLM-attributed transactions, and 11.8 percent of brands now say an LLM has come up at least once in their attribution surveys, up from under 1 percent a year ago. One agency's data showed ChatGPT traffic converting at 4.2 percent, 112 percent above traditional channels, with a $130 average order value and $5.57 revenue per session despite 60 percent less time on site. A counterpoint study that examined 188 million sessions from organic search alongside 671,000 arriving via LLMs found organic search generally outperformed LLM referrals on key conversions, though LLM traffic won in health, careers and catalog categories and tied organic in SaaS; in consumer e-commerce it lagged well behind, 7.14 percent versus 24.12 percent.
Walmart now officially lets sellers use Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment for Walmart Marketplace orders, with conditions: neutral boxes with no Amazon branding, non-Amazon carriers such as USPS, UPS or FedEx, no Amazon invoices or packing materials, no retail arbitrage, and no marking orders shipped before they leave the warehouse. Two tools drawing attention among sellers: a searchable library of more than 2.7 million Amazon ads, and an extractor that pulls Rufus Q&A data from product pages.
Quick hits: QVC launched 24/7 live shopping on TikTok Shop; Mercado Libre reported strong first-quarter revenue of $5.9 billion; tests found OpenAI's Sora beating Amazon's own AI for creating Sponsored Brand campaign videos; Google's new AI Mode traffic is proving untrackable for attribution; and authorities say an Armenian syndicate stole $83 million of Amazon goods in California.
