Let's keep an eye on tariffs

[SoCalBobS]

Let's use this thread to share information or experiences related to the tariffs on goods from China. There's a lot swirling out there. This is in no way meant to be a political issue, but simply a place to share knowledge. Two things I'll start with.

Much of the items we buy from China and Hong Kong for our hobby have apparently fallen under the "de minimus" customs exemption, where things under $800 were not charged customs duty. That may be eliminated or suspended. How and by whom that commences being collected is unstated for now.

The Washington Post has reported that USPS is suspending shipments from China and Hong Kong. CBS also.

[SoCalBobS]

DKLM RC posted on FB for customers to contact him regarding pending shipments due to the changing situation.

As of Wednesday morning, USPS states they’re resuming acceptance of packages from China and Hong Kong.

No word on the less than $800 duty free threshold.

[Delta_19]

DKLM RC posted on FB for customers to contact him regarding pending shipments due to the changing situation.

As of Wednesday morning, USPS states they’re resuming acceptance of packages from China and Hong Kong.

No word on the less than $800 duty free threshold.

The $800 duty limit between the us and China is gone as of a few hours ago.

[SoCalBobS]

The $800 duty limit between the us and China is gone as of a few hours ago.

We haven’t had to deal with this as other countries have. Does the seller pay a tariff and pass along the cost? Or does the item get to the US and the buyer pays the tariff? Does the item stay at Customs until it’s paid?

[Rubicon99]

We haven’t had to deal with this as other countries have. Does the seller pay a tariff and pass along the cost? Or does the item get to the US and the buyer pays the tariff? Does the item stay at Customs until it’s paid?

Dealing with "Luxury goods" my wife buys from overseas we have had to pay at time of delivery or the package is not left. Usually USPS can do payment at your door or they leave a call tag and you have to pay and pick it up at the post office.

It's not been a big issue and is easy to do. Just a little inconvenience.

[Roaming Gnome]

https://www.inc.com/jennifer-conrad/trump-just-eliminated-the-800-duty-free-exemption-for-imports-from-china-it-could-be-a-disaster-for-small-businesses/91143261

[Delta_19]

We haven’t had to deal with this as other countries have. Does the seller pay a tariff and pass along the cost? Or does the item get to the US and the buyer pays the tariff? Does the item stay at Customs until it’s paid?

so duty fees are the base tariffs that you pay on all items that you the customer buy not the seller in china, they are not paid by the seller in china but charged to you upon delivery of the item. it use to be that anything under $800 the fee was waived but now when you buy something from china like say a new heng long tank you will have to pay before the post man drops off your package. some couriers will email you before hand so you can pay online or over the phone, some will try to catch you at home and leave a slip telling you where to go to pay and pick up.

this is in the same category as the tariffs that currently dominate the news in the USA and Canada but think about it more as now there is no maximum you can buy before you have to pay tax, all items you purchase from china will be taxed and the tariffs when they come in to effect will be an additional 25% tax you have to pay on top.

just remember and i cant stress this enough because I know a lot of people that dont seem to get this. these tariffs and duty are not paid by china, these tariffs and dutys are an addition tax Americans and only Americans have to pay for buying items made outside the USA.

[Roaming Gnome]

everyone I know knows who pays the tariff, the confusion comes with how because it was just dropped on the table, the USPS has to scramble to get a system in place from what i read. What they handle now with non-exempt items isn't nearly the volume they see with formerly exempt.

[Evan D]

I buy very little direct from China and almost nothing from Mexico, Canadia or elsewhere. 99.9% is through a retailer. For me the question is will the retailer pass that cost to me in higher prices, will the retailer eat the cost or will the retailer demand the original seller wherever to lower their cost a proportional amount. I think some may do one of all three or a combination.

[Delta_19]

I buy very little direct from China and almost nothing from Mexico, Canadia or elsewhere. 99.9% is through a retailer. For me the question is will the retailer pass that cost to me in higher prices, will the retailer eat the cost or will the retailer demand the original seller wherever to lower their cost a proportional amount. I think some may do one of all three or a combination.

No business is gonna eat the cost. It will only be option one or three, most likely only option one. I sure as hell wouldn't lower my price for a customer in the usa because of their tariffs, I need to put food on the table and cover cost of operation.

[Evan D]

We'll see, I expect little will change. We and the rest of the world have already been paying tariffs, import duty and VAT.

[keilau]

We'll see, I expect little will change. We and the rest of the world have already been paying tariffs, import duty and VAT.

Yes, it is always the consumer end up paying for tariffs. No exception yet in the business world.

[Roaming Gnome]

when retailers like Amazon can write off $700 air rifles, I suspect they'll absorb a lot of it

[Evan D]

When you have multiple retailers and some up the price to "pass the tariff to the consumer" and others don't, who is going to make the sale?

I think we are entering a shift in spending in the US. We have had it good for a long time and the reality Europe, Australia, and others have been dealing with will be what we get. Motion just released a new twin 70mm EDF that is 20+% more than another, equally complex twin 70mm they recently released.

[keilau]

When you have multiple retailers and some up the price to "pass the tariff to the consumer" and others don't, who is going to make the sale?

I think we are entering a shift in spending in the US. We have had it good for a long time and the reality Europe, Australia, and others have been dealing with will be what we get. Motion just released a new twin 70mm EDF that is 20+% more than another, equally complex twin 70mm they recently released.

Some politician will want you to believe that the tariffs will be picked up by the export country. It is a lie. The tariff is an import duty paid by an US company. Will the US importer compress their profit to charge the retailer less? Very unlikely. It is possible, but difficult to buy it cheaper by searching for old stock.

[Tang - RC.Senshado]

Some people here who know me in person know I work in imports. The tariff would be most certainly be paid by you as the consumer, whether it's obvious or not is another story. If you buy directly from China on a China made good you're paying a tariff because you're importing it.

If you're a US company bringing it in, such as mine, we pay the tarriff and we adjust our pricing to market conditions and in the end you the consumer pay for it in the form of a more expensive commodity.

Nobody is in business to lose money and you as an individual don't want to work for nothing either so don't get it twisted that companies are entirely built off greed and profits.. The price companies sell to consumers in the US would have to reflect those tariffs in order to be feasible otherwise who is gonna do it for free? Imagine you do some work for nothing and now you have a problem with your customer and you lose a couple bucks every time. Changing prices is just a market adjustment, same as in any other sector where a component goes up in price, the overall price on something is supposed to go up. If the market is jacked up, the pricing will be too. Remember COVID? Remember if you're buying in the US, you're still paying for a living breathing American to do the legwork of sustaining what we do here as opposed to having to be talking to a Chinese agent and getting no warranty or service because language barrier and they won't be able to help you from another continent. So market prices have to reflect realistic conditions and isn't just an artificial markup on a whim by a retailer much of the time. Some companies/brands who have such heavy leverage on the importing and connections to manufacturing can keep their prices lower or play the game and drive the price down and kill off their competitors. It's not new. It's not some conspiracy where 3 business hold out and 2 should follow in price. Companies with no skin in the game in the US (aka some Chinese company selling directly to you like an Ali or Temu) would do well to drive prices unrealistically low because they don't have the same overhead. Remember that people need to get paid. Things get shipped and require fuel and a boot on the ground to move it. Things need to be warehoused, items advertised and customer service to be administered. Those factors are a constant with or without tariffs so consider that as well. If this hobby were strictly a buy from China/Amazon kind of deal for the cheapest with no support otherwise, I can guarantee we'd actually be more fragmented as a community. If you think things would sustain just buying from a faceless company from China directly for cheapest wham bam thank you ma'am, hobbies like ours would never take off. Ask some of the fellas here who have run hobby businesses who are helping you out on this board for free. In fact some industries are dying because it's a race to the bottom. Keeping the prices around the same is not to keep profit margins high or simply doing what the other guys are doing, it's to keep some form of integrity in the market and when a newcomer disrupts it, the market has to adjust.

Now on the flip side you might think this is bs and why would companies engage in some sort of price manipulation and shouldn't they try to sell more by being the cheapest. Well that might help in a very short window to the consumer, and then that business would go under and you'd actually see less and less competition and consolidation of the market. You don't want that. There is no reasonable way for some types of goods like ours here to be made here and not cost a small fortune. We'd almost certainly look to be closer to the price of Tamiyas if Heng Long was produced in the USA. Globally we do enjoy cheaper labor and if you're ignorant of that fact, I would like to pose to you the question of how much $ per hour do you expect to make assembling something like an RC tank here in the US. The leverage China has enjoyed has been abused and used to bypass and undercut and drive down prices to the point where it is unsustainable for anybody to do business in America unless you are subsidized or a giant who moves volume so it is a double edged sword because consumers might see the lowest price and think that's where it should be the whole time. Then you have flooded markets and then other problems arise too. Anyway I don't want to get into politics but those are some cause/effects to consider.

The wack part is some of these goods simply won't ever be made here in the US without tremendous cost in western money to someone to develop and market up front. We all need a cooperative world market for many things we no longer can/should produce ourselves but without unfair practices and leverage entering our market and creating these big picture issues.

You as a consumer are entitled to spend the money the way you like. If you want to apply a personal ethical concern to how you spend money, consider that it might not always be the most comfortable position to take but it does improve things in the long run if enough people do it in theory. However you can't tell people how to spend their money either.

[Panzermechaniker]

Here in Canada buying from the US has been a non starter for me since about 2022. USD is too high and so are the shipping rates and the packages very rarely escape the taxes and broker charges and take forever to get here for some reason. Some of the tracking routes doing circuits around the whole US before they finally get to the hub to ship to Canada are unbelievable. The Euro has pretty well stayed the same vs the CAD and as high as say the shipping rates from Germany can be (but not always) the packages most of the time escape duty and also have the 19% VAT removed by the German dealers.

[Delta_19]

Here in Canada buying from the US has been a non starter for me since about 2022. USD is too high and so are the shipping rates and the packages very rarely escape the taxes and broker charges and take forever to get here for some reason. Some of the tracking routes doing circuits around the whole US before they finally get to the hub to ship to Canada are unbelievable. The Euro has pretty well stayed the same vs the CAD and as high as say the shipping rates from Germany can be (but not always) the packages most of the time escape duty and also have the 19% VAT removed by the German dealers.

Man it's not even the exchange rate for me, it's dealing with the couriers delivering the items. The 3 laps around the usa, the week at the border, then having to call in and pay a duty so they even give it a 50/50 of coming to my door.

[Rubicon99]

In the end the manufacturers feel the tariffs in the form of fewer sales which mean lower production rates and higher cost to them. That is way countries having tariffs placed on them are willing to talk. It's their manufacturing base that is screaming at their leaders to avoid the tariffs.

China is no friend to the west and have some of the highest tariffs in the world against western made products making western products far more expensive for the average Chinese citizen to afford. Hence the Chinese citizens has no choice but to buy the made in China product. This is most evident in the auto and high fashion industries but many other industries are effect too.

[tank_me]

Man it's not even the exchange rate for me, it's dealing with the couriers delivering the items. The 3 laps around the usa, the week at the border, then having to call in and pay a duty so they even give it a 50/50 of coming to my door.

We in the US don't pay a duty on Canadian goods so that duty sounds like it's imposed by the Canadian side. I will agree that sometimes packages take weird routes to make it places. I just sent my electronic dead Maxxpro to a guy in Washington State from Texas. It went the complete opposite way to New Jersey before heading to Washington State.