Why @jacustoms US$100 Duty Free shopping coming as Jamaicans shopping online

Jamaican clearly have more money to spend this Christmas 2015.............and Christmas isn't even here as yet!

This as the Jamaica Customs Agency has posted some interesting stats that indicate that Jamaicans are shopping more online as reported in the article entitled “Online Shopping Duty-Free Limit Could Be Increased, Customs Considering Move”, published Monday September 28, 2015 by Jovan Johnson, Gleaner Writer, The Jamaica Gleaner.

Here's what Commissioner of Customs, Major Richard Reese, revealed about Jamaicans and importation up to Wednesday September 23^rd 2015:

1.      7% increase in Customs Duties revenue collected compared to the same period in 2014

2.      JA$83.8 billion Customs Duties revenue collected up to Wednesday September 23^rd 2015

3.      JA$78.1 billion Customs Duties revenue collected up to Tuesday September 23^rd 2014

So why are Jamaican shopping more online? And what does the Jamaica Customs Agency plan to do to benefit from this trend?

Jamaica Customs Agency Stats - Why US$100 Duty Free shopping coming as Jamaicans shopping online this Christmas

Most likely, this is being driven by the trend towards Jamaican buying School items and supplies online, which they can do by shopping at online deal store in bulk.

This as Jamaicans have more disposable income to spend seeing as the price of Energy i.e. Gasoline and consequently Electricity have both been trending down as the price of Oil drop below US$50 as reported in my blog article entitled “US$50 per barrel Oil from OPEC – Why Ford Motors is predicting a bright future for All-Electric Vehicles”.

I know this as traffic on my How-to articles related to Shopping Online on Geezam entitled “How to ship things to Jamaica after you’re purchase them online”. Traffic to my other blog article entitled “How to purchase items and subscribe to Magazines online and ship them to Jamaica” has also seen a steady increase as well.

Jamaica Customs Agency Stats - Why US$100 Duty Free shopping coming as Jamaicans shopping online this Christmas

Encouraged by these signs, the Jamaica Customs Agency has put in place a twelve (12) point plan to raise an additional JA$2.1 billion in revenue. This will involve raising the duty-free limit for online shopping to US$100 from the current level of US$50.

That means any item that costs under US$100 can be shipped to Jamaica Duty Free. While this may not sound like much, a lot of small items such as book, stationary and school supplies cost under US$100.

A few electronics gadgets such as the uber-popular just-releasedUS$49 Amazon Fire Tablet as reported in my MICO Wars blog article entitled “US$50 Amazon Fire Tablet and US$50 Amazon Fire TV Stick makes Christmas bright” will be on every Jamaicans' shopping list this Christmas.

 For the more Developer oriented, the US$35 Raspberry Pi 2 Model B beckons as reported in my blog article entitled “US$35 Raspberry Pi 2 Model B to run Windows 10 - Why Windows Developer Program for IoT is Microsoft 's IoT Push”.

You can also get the Raspberry Pi 7” Touchscreen for US$60 and make a really cool touch screen controller as explained in my blog article entitled “How the US$60 Raspberry Pi 7” Touchscreen can be used as a Touchscreen Controller”

But that’s' just what I'm planning to buy for myself, if this proves to be true.

So we wait with baited breath for the Jamaica Customs Agency to make another announcement and make this official as Christmas nice again. Also, it means I can start posting ads in the Sunday Gleaner!