DutyLookout

DutyLookout user manual

DutyLookout assigns a US tariff code (HTS) to every product in your Shopify catalogue, estimates the import duty on it, and tells you when a rate you rely on changes.

This manual is written for the person doing the work — usually whoever owns shipping, compliance, or landed cost. It assumes no customs background.

Chapters

  • 1. Getting started — Install DutyLookout, approve the plan, and follow the first catalogue sync through to your first classified products.
  • 2. How classification works — What an HTS code is, the two classification passes, the four product statuses, and how to read a confidence score and its reasoning.
  • 3. Reviewing and approving codes — Working the review queue: approving a suggested code, overriding it, and writing approved codes back to Shopify.
  • 4. Duty estimates — How the duty stack is built, which dated rate snapshot it came from, and what a duty estimate does not include.
  • 5. Tariff alerts — Daily change detection against the published tariff schedule, the alerts it raises for your products, and the email digest.
  • 6. Settings — Auto-approve, notification preferences, and where to check your plan and this month's classification usage.
  • 7. Troubleshooting — What to do when nothing is classified, when a code looks wrong, and when a catalogue sync appears stuck.
  • 8. FAQ — Short answers on customs advice, data access, pricing, country coverage, and the free HS-code lookup.

The one-minute version

  1. Install DutyLookout and approve the plan. It is $0/month — your first 25 classifications each month are free, and after that you pay per product.
  2. Your catalogue syncs automatically. Classification runs in the background and the first results land within about 15 minutes.
  3. Open Products. Each row shows a suggested HTS code, a confidence score, and the reasoning behind it.
  4. Approve the ones you agree with. Approved codes are written back to Shopify's HS code field on the product.
  5. Alerts tells you when a duty rate on a code you hold changes.

An important limit

DutyLookout produces estimates to work from, not customs advice. A suggested code is a starting point that a human should confirm — you remain responsible for what you declare. The app is deliberately built to support that: it decides each product in two passes, the second picking the ten-digit line from the real lines published under the chosen subheading; it refuses to show a code that is not in the currently published tariff revision; it computes duty by arithmetic against a dated snapshot rather than by asking a model for a number; it shows its reasoning and scores its own confidence; it never writes a code you have not approved unless you explicitly turn on auto-approve; and it keeps an exportable audit trail of every decision.