Your customer was charged duties at delivery. Here is why, and how to stop it.

If you have had a support ticket that starts "UPS just asked me for $36", this is a shipping-terms problem, not a carrier error. It is fixable, and the fix pays for itself in refused parcels alone.

What is actually happening

You shipped the parcel duties unpaid, which means the import charges are the recipient’s responsibility. The carrier’s broker clears the parcel, pays duty and tax to customs on your customer’s behalf, and adds a brokerage or disbursement fee for the service.

The driver then collects the total at the door, or the parcel is held until the customer pays online. From your customer’s point of view, they bought something at a stated price and are now being asked for more money by a company they have no relationship with.

The fee is the problem, not the duty

Duty on a low-value consumer parcel is often modest. The brokerage fee is not — it is priced for the service of making an entry, not as a percentage of goods.

On a $90 order, $11 of duty and a $24 brokerage fee read as a $35 surprise. Customers do not separate the two or care which is which. They conclude your shipping was misrepresented.

What it costs you

Refusals. The parcel comes back and you pay return freight plus the original outbound.

Refunds and chargebacks. Some customers dispute the original charge rather than argue about duty.

Support load. Every ticket is unresolvable, because the charge is not yours to waive.

Reviews. This is the expensive one. A review mentioning hidden fees deters buyers for years and cannot be refunded.

Move the charge to checkout

The alternative is shipping delivered duty paid: quote duty, tax and the brokerage component at checkout, collect it with the order, and have the parcel enter prepaid so nobody knocks on the door.

Conversion drops slightly, because the true cost is now visible. Refusals, return freight, refunds, support time and fee-related reviews drop a great deal more.

The common objection is that duty collection requires a Shopify Plus plan. Native managed duties does. Collecting landed cost at checkout does not — which is the specific gap DoorFree fills.