Amazon is expanding its Haul store to offer a wider variety of goods, including name-brand items that it ships from its own US warehouses.
Previously, Haul only offered unbranded products from outside sellers that shipped products directly from China with delivery times of more than a week, using the de minimis loophole to avoid paying tariffs on those imported items. However that provision is set to disappear on May 2nd, which means the whole direct-from-China retail model is about to change for everyone, including Haul, Temu, Shein, AliExpress, and others.
Now Amazon has started listing more inventory on Haul, including some apparel that it buys in bulk from Adidas, Levi's, and the Gap, which ship from US warehouses. The move is designed to make Haul a destination for bargain hunting, as opposed to exclusively a direct-from-China marketplace.
So is “Haul” just “Amazon” now? Originally, the big differentiators with Haul were that all items were under $20 and in exchange for cheaper prices, they'd take longer to arrive, as they ship from China. Now that distinction has gone out the window, so what's the difference?
Mia Sato from The Verge wrote:
“The under $20 hook also seems irrelevant now: in a few seconds of browsing I found makeup pouches for $20.99, leggings for $27.20, and dresses for $34.82. Some of those products are the same price on Haul and they are on classic Amazon, which raises the question of why a shopper would buy it on Haul to begin with. Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.”
Haul feels like a silly experiment that will likely shut down soon, as there's never been a reason for it. If Amazon wanted to, they could've just made a category called “Bargains from China” on its traditional Amazon marketplace and simply indicated that the items take more than week to arrive (ie: non-Prime items). Technically, those types of items have existed and sold on Amazon for years, so Haul was nothing more than an exercise in branding to compete with Temu, which Trump cut short with his tariffs (for now).