What is Seller Rules?

A free weekly newsletter and website that lists the government actions that cost online sellers money, each one quoted from the government document, with a line on who it affects, what it costs, and what to check.

Yes. One email a week on Wednesdays, no paid tier, no sponsors yet. Unsubscribe with one click.

Physical-product ecommerce brands and importers, from a one-person Etsy shop to a $50 million brand, and the brokers, forwarders, and accountants who advise them.

Sam, an ecommerce operator writing under a pen name. Seller Rules is an information service, not a law firm; the what-to-check lines name what to look at and whom to ask, not how to comply.

About Seller Rules

Published since September 2026. Written by Sam. Contact sam@sellerrules.com.

What it is

Seller Rules is a free weekly newsletter and website that reports the government actions that cost online sellers money: tariff and customs changes, CBP filing rules and fees, product-safety recalls, the compliance documents marketplaces demand, payment-processor orders, and carrier price changes. It is written for physical-product brands and importers, and read by anyone who talks to a customs broker.

Each change is one row of a table: who it affects, what it costs, and what to check, with every quoted sentence copied from the government document and linked to it. One email a week, on Wednesdays. No sponsors yet, no paid tier.

How a row is checked

Every day the site pulls what the Federal Register, U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s CSMS messages, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission publish. A change is written up only from the document itself. Before an issue goes out, software re-fetches each document and confirms that every quoted sentence is still in it; any sentence it cannot find is deleted. Last check: September 11, 2026, 97 of 97 quoted sentences found.

The headline, summary, who-it-affects, cost, and what-to-check lines are our reading of the document. They are labeled that way on every page, and they are not legal, customs, or tax advice. The editorial policy says how corrections and sponsors are handled.

Who writes it

Sam is an ecommerce operator who kept finding out about rule changes from a broker’s invoice or a supplier email, weeks after the money was gone. Sam is a pen name; the publication is identified by its contact address and by the postal address in every email. When a business entity is formed to own Seller Rules, this page will name it.

What it covers, and does not

Tariffs and customs: proclamations, USTR notices, CBP guidance, entry fees, importer-of-record rules.
Product safety: CPSC rules and recalls in categories sold online, testing and certificate requirements.
Marketplace compliance demands that trace back to a law or rule (INFORM Act verification, certificates).
Payments and fraud: FTC orders that change what processors screen for.
Shipping and postal: USPS and carrier price changes filed with regulators.
Not covered: state sales tax, employment law, platform policy changes with no government document behind them, and anything we cannot quote.

Questions people ask

What is Seller Rules?: A free weekly newsletter and website that lists the government actions that cost online sellers money, each one quoted from the government document, with a line on who it affects, what it costs, and what to check.
Is it free?: Yes. One email a week on Wednesdays, no paid tier, no sponsors yet. Unsubscribe with one click.
Who is it for?: Physical-product ecommerce brands and importers, from a one-person Etsy shop to a $50 million brand, and the brokers, forwarders, and accountants who advise them.
Who writes it?: Sam, an ecommerce operator writing under a pen name. Seller Rules is an information service, not a law firm; the what-to-check lines name what to look at and whom to ask, not how to comply.

Read it elsewhere

Every published change is at All changes, and there is an RSS feed. Questions, corrections, and documents we missed go to sam@sellerrules.com.