Flexport Debuts Tools to Help Imports Ease Tariff Tensions

Logistics and supply chain technology company Flexport has debuted new customs and tariff management tools.

The suite of tools, announced Tuesday (Oct. 14), is designed to help importers reduce costs and remain compliant amid rising trade tensions and uncertainty.

“Global trade is so important and yet it’s constantly slowed down by complexity, opacity, and inefficiencies,” Ryan Petersen, Flexport founder/CEO, said in a news release. “Our goal is to make logistics as simple and reliable as flipping a light switch.”

The new Flexport Customs Technology Suite includes tools such as Tariff Simulator Pro, an upgraded version of a tool earlier this year, providing things like smart notifications for monitoring tariff rate changes.

There’s also Customs Analysis, an AI-powered platform that examines U.S. Customs and Border Protection data to evaluate an importer’s import and export activity for compliance and risk exposure.

A report on the launch by the Wall Street Journal notes that customs brokerage, which offers services like assessing tariffs and filing paperwork, is a small but rapidly growing sector of the logistics space, as customers scramble to comply with changing U.S. tariff policies.

Petersen told the news outlet Flexport’s gross profit on its customs brokerage business so far this year has doubled from 2024 and is forecast to grow even faster next year.

As PYMNTS wrote last week, tariffs have hiked costs and complicated logistics, but have also spotlighted how resilient merchants can be when incentives shift toward efficiency and control.

“Goods producers, which includes retailers and tech firms, report higher input costs and delivery delays, but they also point to opportunities to localize sourcing and harden supply chains against further shocks,” that report said.

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence shows that 92.6% of goods firms report higher raw-material costs, and 74.1% point to shortages or delays in procuring certain products. At the same time, 70.4% see tariffs as an opportunity to support their local economy, and 40.7% say tariffs have improved supply chain resilience.

“That mix of strain and adaptation explains why many merchants are rebalancing from single-source imports toward multisourcing and near-shoring, even when near-term costs are higher,” PYMNTS added.

In other tariff-related news, economists at Goldman Sachs said this week that American consumers will ultimately bear more than half of the total cost of the U.S. tariff regime. That figure had been only at 22% at the middle of this year.

Since then, there’s been policy whiplash, PYMNTS wrote, with the White House announcing plans to hike tariffs on China well beyond 100%, upping the stakes for businesses and consumers alike.

“The volatility means firms face high uncertainty about future sourcing and cost structures and many appear to be acting on the assumption that tariff costs will not recede anytime soon,” that report added.