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Having a large number of unusual European bikes; many parts I routinely find myself in need of are simply not carried by suppliers in the US.
For much of the past 30-35 years this was never a problem. A few phone calls, later fax, and today email would turn up parts and they'd be on their way. Shipping costs were always high -- and most EU parts folks greatly prefer bank transfer to credit cards.
Starting last year about mid-summer; parts supplies started to dry up in the US and importing parts suddenly proved challenging. Flash forward to this summer and it's proving expensive and challenging.
About half of my normal suppliers are still willing to ship to the US. All say the same thing: we don't know how long it may take to get to you and you may wind up paying duty/tariffs.
How much are these mythical duties and tariffs -- well, I just had two different orders come in from Italy (Guzzi parts) and Germany (NSU parts). Both were hit with 15% import duties. When combined with shipping, it meant that I was generally paying $100 in shipping and $50-60 in duty on $300 in small parts. On top of that - I also owe state tax on these shipments so another 10% is charged on everything including the international shipping.
So, for $610 in parts from German/Italy; I paid $205 in shipping, $120 in duty, and $65 in state tax = $390 in tax and shipping!
So, let's just call that 60% for shipping/tax. I'm willing to pay that for rare or unobtainable parts needed to keep a machine on the road -- but I won't pay that for general supplies or parts.
One of my other common parts suppliers for a variety of Euro bikes (based in Germany) answered me with this literal quote when I asked about shipping costs:
The UPS shipping costs shown in our online shop are intentionally set very high to prevent customers in the USA from placing orders.
Due to the current customs policy of the US authorities and the significantly increased documentation requirements for shipments to the USA, we have had to suspend all shipping to the United States until further notice. At present, we therefore have no possibility of sending parcels to the USA, regardless of the shipping carrier.
The costs they were referring to were basically 50 bucks per pound to ship an item. As far as I can tell; this isn't affecting UK suppliers to the US; just EU and specifically German and Italian companies.
I'd be curious what others are running into.
For much of the past 30-35 years this was never a problem. A few phone calls, later fax, and today email would turn up parts and they'd be on their way. Shipping costs were always high -- and most EU parts folks greatly prefer bank transfer to credit cards.
Starting last year about mid-summer; parts supplies started to dry up in the US and importing parts suddenly proved challenging. Flash forward to this summer and it's proving expensive and challenging.
About half of my normal suppliers are still willing to ship to the US. All say the same thing: we don't know how long it may take to get to you and you may wind up paying duty/tariffs.
How much are these mythical duties and tariffs -- well, I just had two different orders come in from Italy (Guzzi parts) and Germany (NSU parts). Both were hit with 15% import duties. When combined with shipping, it meant that I was generally paying $100 in shipping and $50-60 in duty on $300 in small parts. On top of that - I also owe state tax on these shipments so another 10% is charged on everything including the international shipping.
So, for $610 in parts from German/Italy; I paid $205 in shipping, $120 in duty, and $65 in state tax = $390 in tax and shipping!
So, let's just call that 60% for shipping/tax. I'm willing to pay that for rare or unobtainable parts needed to keep a machine on the road -- but I won't pay that for general supplies or parts.
One of my other common parts suppliers for a variety of Euro bikes (based in Germany) answered me with this literal quote when I asked about shipping costs:
The UPS shipping costs shown in our online shop are intentionally set very high to prevent customers in the USA from placing orders.
Due to the current customs policy of the US authorities and the significantly increased documentation requirements for shipments to the USA, we have had to suspend all shipping to the United States until further notice. At present, we therefore have no possibility of sending parcels to the USA, regardless of the shipping carrier.
The costs they were referring to were basically 50 bucks per pound to ship an item. As far as I can tell; this isn't affecting UK suppliers to the US; just EU and specifically German and Italian companies.
I'd be curious what others are running into.