Recovering $100,000+ in Overpaid Import Duties for Sand Cloud

Sand Cloud was founded in San Diego in 2014 by three friends who shared a love for the beach and the ocean. What started as a search for a better beach towel evolved into a lightweight, sand resistant towel made from Turkish cotton, paired with a mission to protect marine life. From the beginning, Sand Cloud committed to donating a portion of profits to ocean conservation and marine wildlife organizations.

The brand gained national attention in 2017 after appearing on Shark Tank and securing an investment from Robert Herjavec. That moment accelerated growth and helped Sand Cloud expand beyond towels into blankets, apparel, and other beach and lifestyle products.

Today, Sand Cloud is a leading beach lifestyle brand. In addition to its strong direct to consumer business, Sand Cloud products can be found in thousands of retail stores across the United States, bringing its ocean inspired mission to customers nationwide.

This year’s reciprocal tariffs created real pressure on Sand Cloud’s supply chain. As an import-heavy brand sourcing products internationally, increased duties directly impacted landed costs, margins, and cash flow. With products sold both direct to consumer and through thousands of retail partners, even small changes in duty rates had an outsized effect on profitability.

Faced with higher tariffs, Sand Cloud began looking for ways to optimize their imports rather than simply absorbing the added costs or passing them on to customers. That meant taking a closer look at how products were classified, where duties were being paid, and what opportunities existed to reduce or recover those costs while keeping their supply chain running efficiently.

To address these challenges, Sand Cloud joined Evana and connected their core platforms, allowing data to flow directly into Evana’s system for a full evaluation of historical and ongoing import activity. By piping in this data, Evana was able to analyze shipments, duties paid, and export activity across recent years with a level of precision that would have been nearly impossible to do manually.

Through this process, Evana identified more than $100,000 in eligible import duty refunds from prior years. Beyond the immediate recovery, Evana was set up to operate on auto pilot going forward. With continuous monitoring and ongoing filing in the background, Sand Cloud now has confidence that they will not overpay on import duties again, turning a former cost center into a long term optimization advantage.

Compared to traditional customs brokers, Evana operates in a completely different category. Most brokers treat duty refunds as a side service, often manual, slow, and deprioritized behind day to day brokerage work. Evana is purpose built specifically for import duty refunds, with technology, workflows, and expertise designed around one outcome: getting brands their money back as fast and efficiently as possible.

Because Evana is specialized in duty recovery and built to serve modern retail and ecommerce brands, the process moves dramatically faster. Today, Evana’s average turnaround time from first conversation to cash in hand is approximately four months, which is an industry leading timeline. This speed is made possible by Evana’s platform driven approach, deep focus on refunds, and ability to integrate directly with the systems brands already use. For Sand Cloud, that meant faster results, less internal lift, and a partner designed to move at the same pace as their business.