LandedIQ

Idea

A landed cost and margin copilot for small online sellers who source physical goods from overseas suppliers. Since the US suspended the $800 de minimis exemption for all countries in February 2026, every parcel now owes duty, fees, and formal or informal entry, no matter how small. LandedIQ takes a seller's SKU list (product name, supplier cost, weight, supplier country) and tells them, per SKU, the true landed cost, the real margin after tariffs, and whether the product is still worth selling.

Market gap

Executive Order 14388 continued the suspension of duty-free de minimis treatment for all countries, effective February 24, 2026 (White House, Federal Register). Before that date, a huge share of dropshipping and private-label resale ran on parcels under $800 clearing free. That is gone. Every parcel now needs an HTS code and a duty calculation.

The tools that exist to help (Zonos, Avalara) are built around a merchant's own checkout. They calculate and collect duty at checkout on a Shopify or custom store. That model does not fit the seller who lists on Amazon, Etsy, or TikTok Shop and never controls checkout. Those sellers have no de minimis tool at all. They are left doing HTS lookups and duty math by hand, per SKU, right when the math changed under them.

Timing is why now: the rule change is five months old as of this writing, tariff rates and country-specific rates keep shifting (the suspension itself moved through EO 14324 then EO 14388), and marketplace sellers who never had to think about customs before are actively trying to figure out if their catalog still makes money.

Total Addressable Market (TAM)

Bottom-up, US sellers who source physical goods from overseas suppliers on marketplaces without their own checkout:

• US active Amazon third-party sellers: approximately 1.1 million (58% of Amazon's ~1.9M global active sellers are US-based). Source: Redstag Fulfillment, "How Many Third-Party Sellers Are on Amazon in 2026," and eDesk Amazon statistics 2026.
• Assumption: roughly 50% of these run a dropshipping, private-label, or wholesale-import model sourcing from overseas suppliers (versus domestic wholesale or handmade). This is a stated assumption, not a directly sourced percentage. → ~550,000 sellers.
• TikTok Shop US active sellers (shops with real sales, not just registrations): approximately 216,000. Source: Dashboardly, "TikTok Shop Seller Statistics (2026)," and Redstag Fulfillment TikTok Shop stats.
• Assumption: roughly 60% of TikTok Shop sellers run a trend-product resale model sourced overseas (higher share than Amazon because TikTok Shop skews toward viral, low-cost, overseas-sourced goods). Stated assumption. → ~130,000 sellers.
• Combined addressable seller pool: ~680,000.
• Blended ACV assumption: $700/year (weighted toward the $49/mo entry tier with a smaller share on higher tiers).
• TAM = 680,000 x $700 ≈ $476M.

SAM: realistically reachable in year 1-3 through content, marketplace-seller communities, and paid search (English-speaking, already using SaaS tools like Helium 10 or Sellerboard) ≈ 15% of TAM pool = 102,000 sellers x $700 ≈ $71M.

SOM: year-1 target of 300 paying customers (0.3% of SAM) x $700 ACV ≈ $210K ARR. This is a realistic bootstrapped year-1 target for a 2-3 person team, not the full market ambition.

Monetization strategy

Subscription SaaS billed monthly or annually, priced per SKU-count tier. Sellers pay because the tool directly prevents them from selling at a loss (a $15 item with a 40% duty rate can go from 56% gross margin to 42%, per current landed-cost analyses) and replaces hours of manual HTS lookup and duty math per SKU. Secondary revenue: referral fees from licensed customs brokers and freight forwarders for sellers who need actual entry filing done (LandedIQ calculates and advises; it does not file entries, since customs brokerage requires a federal license).

Pricing strategy

• Free calculator (lead magnet): up to 10 SKUs, one-time report, email required.
• Starter, $49/mo (entry point): up to 50 SKUs, manual CSV/URL entry, monthly tariff-rate refresh.
• Growth, $99/mo (anchor tier): up to 300 SKUs, Amazon/Etsy/TikTok Shop CSV export import, margin-threshold alerts, weekly tariff-change monitoring.
• Pro, $199/mo: unlimited SKUs, multi-store, exportable HTS audit trail for handoff to a customs broker or accountant.

The anchor is Growth at $99/mo because most sellers with an active multi-SKU catalog need alerts, not just a one-time calculation, and $99 undercuts Avalara's enterprise-quote model and Zonos's per-transaction fees.

Lead magnet

A free "Tariff Margin Check": seller pastes up to 10 product links or a small CSV (name, supplier cost, weight, supplier country), gets an instant per-SKU report showing landed cost, estimated duty, and new margin, no signup beyond an email address. This proves the core value (find out which of your products are now losing money) in under two minutes.

Social proof that the problem exists

1. Shopify Community thread, "USA Import Tariffs and End of 'De Minimis'" (community.shopify.com/t/usa-import-tariffs-and-end-of-de-minimis/567439): merchants report Shopify's own duty calculations mismatch carrier tools, no visibility into how the calculation is derived, and HS code classification confusion, with some considering exiting the US market over the administrative burden.
2. Tech.co, "What Do Trump's New Tariffs Mean for US Dropshippers?": reports that most dropshippers relied on de minimis and are "scrambling to reorient their businesses" as margins get squeezed by tariffs and shipping cost inflation.
3. Zonos Duty and Tax app reviews on the Shopify App Store and G2 (4.9 rating but recurring complaints about VAT calculation mismatches and setup complexity): shows real demand for duty tools and real friction with the leading incumbent, which only serves merchants with their own checkout.
4. Federal Register and White House record of Executive Order 14388 ("Continuing the Suspension of Duty-Free De Minimis Treatment for All Countries," effective Feb 24, 2026) and CBP's own announcement that it is enforcing the end of the de minimis loophole: confirms this is an active, current, enforced policy change, not a proposal.

Competitors

• Zonos: duty/tax calculation and collection at checkout, HS code classification API, built for merchants who run their own Shopify, BigCommerce, or custom checkout. Does not serve sellers on Amazon, Etsy, or TikTok Shop, since those platforms do not expose checkout for third-party duty widgets.
• Avalara (Avalara Cross-Border / AvaTax): enterprise tax and customs compliance suite, HS classification, landed cost estimation. Sold through enterprise contracts to larger retailers and brands with dedicated finance or compliance staff. Not self-serve, not priced or scoped for a solo seller.
• iCustoms.ai, TariffDesk, Suaid Global, Nventory.io, Carra Globe: a wave of 2025-2026 sites publishing guides and offering HTS classification or consulting around the de minimis change. Mostly content-and-lead-gen oriented or aimed at importers and brokers, not a self-serve, marketplace-native, per-SKU margin dashboard for solo resellers.
• Licensed customs brokers and freight forwarders: required by law to actually file formal customs entries. Complementary, not competitive. LandedIQ is a decision-support and referral layer in front of them, not a replacement.

What competitors offer now

Zonos and Avalara both calculate duty and tax at the point of a merchant-controlled checkout, remit the collected tax/duty, and offer HS classification APIs, but require the seller to own their checkout flow and, for Avalara, go through a sales-led enterprise onboarding. Neither product connects to an Amazon, Etsy, or TikTok Shop seller account, and neither is built to answer "which of my current SKUs are now unprofitable." The newer de-minimis-focused sites mostly explain the rule change and offer general HTS lookup tools or point to a broker; none of them monitor a seller's actual catalog over time and alert on margin drops when rates change.

What can be done differently to attract customers

Build for the seller who has no checkout to plug a widget into: ingest a CSV export or product list directly from Amazon Seller Central, Etsy Shop Manager, or TikTok Shop Seller Center, rather than requiring checkout integration. Frame the product around a decision ("kill this SKU, reprice this one, keep this one") instead of a compliance obligation, since compliance is not this seller's job (a broker's is) but margin is. Price self-serve from $49/mo with no sales call, undercutting Avalara's enterprise motion entirely. Ship an ongoing tariff-rate monitor so sellers get alerted the next time a rate changes, since the rate itself has already changed twice in the last year (EO 14324, then EO 14388) and will likely change again.