Avalara and eBay Partner to Solve Cross-Border Compliance for Global Sellers

Avalara, a leading provider of cloud-based tax compliance automation for businesses of all sizes, announced its cross-border compliance solutions support eBay International Shipping — a program that takes the complexity out of selling products on eBay and shipping them internationally. eBay International Shipping leverages Avalara software natively to determine Harmonized System (HS) commodity classification codes, identify item-level trade restrictions, and generate landed cost pricing for more than 200 million items hosted on eBay, and sold to more than 200 countries.

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“With Avalara’s cross-border solutions embedded within eBay’s International Shipping program, we’re able to simplify cross-border compliance complexity and reduce potential customer experience disruptions by providing more transparent landed cost pricing for global buyers and helping ensure parcels meet local customs requirements.”

“eBay is passionate about giving people the resources they need to connect with the things they love — no matter what country or category,” said Adam Ireland, VP and GM, eBay US. “With eBay International Shipping, we’re making global connections even more accessible, affordable, and profitable, significantly increasing the volume of items available to shoppers in 200+ countries, and making it even easier for our sellers to tap a universe of new business opportunities.”

Streamlining cross-border compliance for eBay merchants

Consumers often look online to shop for items at lower prices, for goods that are scarce at home, or for products from well-known brands abroad. According to Juniper Research, the value of cross-border ecommerce will exceed $2.1 trillion in 2023. To successfully sell products around the world, businesses must comply with customs duties and import taxes, which can be complex and expensive to navigate.

When it comes to landed cost pricing, tools must take into account HS codes, trade restrictions, and true shipment clearance costs to provide accurate calculations and reduce compliance risks and disruptions to customer experiences. Through eBay International Shipping, eBay has developed a solution to help its more than 5 million sellers make their products available to more than 70 million buyers worldwide.

Avalara’s cross-border solutions make it easier to sell anywhere in the world by automating the process of identifying and mapping tariff codes to products, and by calculating customs duties and import taxes. Several Avalara cross-border solutions will be natively available in eBay, including Avalara Cross-Border Estimated, Avalara Managed Tariff Code Classification, and Avalara Trade Restrictions Management.

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These solutions allow merchants to:

• Improve accuracy of duty and tax estimates. Avalara Cross-Border Estimated calculates costs by leveraging the company’s industry-leading artificial intelligence engine and global compliance content database.
• Reduce customs delays and penalties. Avalara Managed Tariff Code Classification automates the process of assigning HS codes to products, providing advanced shipping information and more accurate customs duty calculations.
• Navigate trade restrictions and unlock new markets. Avalara Trade Restrictions Management maps products to applicable government restrictions to allow merchants to avoid trade complexities and streamline HS code classification, language translation, and calculation of duties and taxes.

“Ecommerce and cross-border consumer demand are booming as global marketplaces make it possible for businesses of all sizes to sell to customers anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, the complexity of cross-border compliance often stands in the way of that opportunity for sellers,” said Jayme Fishman, EVP and GM of Indirect Tax at Avalara. “With Avalara’s cross-border solutions embedded within eBay’s International Shipping program, we’re able to simplify cross-border compliance complexity and reduce potential customer experience disruptions by providing more transparent landed cost pricing for global buyers and helping ensure parcels meet local customs requirements.”

Avalara’s commitment to partner success

Avalara’s latest partnership with eBay illustrates the company’s ongoing commitment to ensuring the success of its partners by embedding its automated tax compliance solutions into partner-led offerings.

Last year, Avalara announced new tools and APIs to expand opportunities for partners to build compliance integrations and functions, as well as a partnership with Xero to automate sales tax compliance for small businesses. In 2021, Avalara announced Shopify would be using the company’s cross-border solutions to power Shopify Markets, a solution that generates landed cost pricing to determine duty and import tax requirements for more than 180 countries.

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