Haven’t ordered from @SKILHUNT since their shipper switched to piggy ship for last mile delivery to my zipcode … last two orders were temporarily “lost” (out for delivery for 2 weeks) and the experience was awful. Now throw this customs fiasco into the mix … I would not trust these guys on a good day, especially if stuff isn’t here by May 2.
At least simon lets you choose USPS for last mile for extra $0.40. Hank ships my stuff fedex.
If you know USPS will handle it, that’s one thing … if you typically get stuff via piggy ship I would be extra cautious now.
EU didn’t have a de minimis for years now, them getting upset about this instead of the tariffs themselves that appear to change every day and are ridiculously high is… Weird.
I guess the difference is that it was announced well in advance, and clearly organized when it happened here. Also, the only thing that needs to be paid in EU is the VAT that we’d also pay for local purchases.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_410
Europe is going to attempt to crack down on these low value packages from China. It might take them a little while to figure out how. The current exemption is €150 euro. They want to charge a fee for customs and other.
It depends, if they source their raw mats from China, maybe. However, if they’re just price gouging because they can, I will personally boycott any conpany that does that, large or small. At least until the prices return to “normal”.
But again, that is speculative, and has no place in this thread.
I don’t know. I suppose they also are made in China.
Today, most (if not all) firms in the manufacturing world are structured in the way Armytek liked to present itself a few years ago.
“We are a … (fill in country of your choice) company with access to manufacturing facilities in China”.
Today we know Armytek used to be a Chinese firm with a postal address in a residential area in Canada.
Philips is hardly more than a name(tag). They manufacture almost nothing consumer oriented themselves.
Most car companies have multiple cooperation agreements with Chinese companies.
Of the power tools tested by a Dutch consumer organization , only ONE brand was not made in China!
Sometimes I am amazed: are they really making that over here? And than realize the key components come from …
The US stopped making TV’s half a century ago. And the list goes on, and on.
A small fender bender in 2023 to our Nissan Leaf started a discourse with the intake clerk about parts. She said you had serious problems getting VW exterior/body parts as they had been made in Ukraine and that plant was bombed.
Seriously, ONE plant in a war torn country made a majority of replacement VW body parts!
Unless something was done the current administration just made THAT even worse.
THIS administration has absolutely no idea WHAT it’s doing with these tariffs. They are using a sledge hammer when a skilled surgeon and knife are better suited.
(Our problem ended up being this national chain didn’t know WHAT to do with an EV, in spite of the fact that the main battery was not even close or associated with any repairs.)
There’s no way, not even a remote chance, our mainstream brands (Fenix, Nitecore, Olight, Acebeam, Skilhunt, Mateminco, etc) will ever be able to, nor would want to, source US made parts. This is a condition of logistics and cost, both of which basically run economical enterprise supply chains and manufacturing. Leds are not made here, it’s prohibitively expensive to do mamufacturing and assembly (machining, anodizing, engraving, or manufacturing drivers) here. This is why China rules the world in that respect. They’ve built on and capitalized on the rest of the world’s economies and corporations nees for low-cost, low overhead production. Can you imagine a Fenix PD36 Tac or a Acebeam P17 or Olight Warrior X4 made in America? Even if they did manage to do it, that $100-$130 light would probably cost $220 or more when it’s all said and done. It would be more economical for buyers to eat the extra tarrif costs than pay extra for a USA-sourced product. It will be extremely interesting to see how all this plays out.
The conversation is now veering off toward speculation and geopolitical issues, so closing.
As usual when this sort of topic comes up, I want to emphasize that I am not trying to promote my personal convictions or sway the conversation in any particular direction, nor am I implying that these issues are not important; I simply do not allow any hot button* issues to be discussed on this forum because they lead to arguments that are difficult for me to moderate and unpleasant for the forum userbase in general.
* Forward-clicky vs. reverse-clicky vs. e-switch arguments notwithstanding.
