Tracking toy tariffs

EnigmaticClarity said:
Preventing rampant Chinese infringement of IP is definitely a good reason to shut them down.

The part about large scale commerce for individuals makes a bit less sense. What's the problem aside from the bootlegs, and won't we still be able to buy from other countries? Granted there isn't any commerce site I'm aware of outside of China and America right now, but I'm sure there must be some that are due for a big boost if America effectively shuts down the Chinese commerce sites for their citizens.
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Basically your de minimis rule was supposed to help keep low cost items from getting hit with duties/fees higher than the product price itself. However over the years the constant increase in the amount got out of hand. I mean $800??? That means you guys get a huge benefit to buy from outside the US and not get hit with duties/fees/taxes. Most countries don't have anywhere near that high an amount because of protectionism.

Chinese companies have used these types of rules, and other loopholes, to muscle out a lot of small to midsize companies. It was supposed to be a way to help China become a developed nation, which they have. Yet no one has had the balls to confront China on this and actually remove all the beneficial rules and loopholes they have used for years. Because of course we want cheap goods (official or not).

I'm not a Trump fan, but you guys have been benefiting from this rule for a long time ($800 was implemented in 2015 under Obama). The question now is who will blink first, the Chinese companies or the American consumer?
 
EnigmaticClarity said:
Preventing rampant Chinese infringement of IP is definitely a good reason to shut them down.

The part about large scale commerce for individuals makes a bit less sense. What's the problem aside from the bootlegs, and won't we still be able to buy from other countries? Granted there isn't any commerce site I'm aware of outside of China and America right now, but I'm sure there must be some that are due for a big boost if America effectively shuts down the Chinese commerce sites for their citizens.
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De Minimis wasn’t designed with really commerce in mind. It was meant to make customs easy for travelers and to let people send gifts and stuff.

The other issue is that we subsidize the shipping of Chinese products to the US because of the United Nations Postal Union treating China still as a developing nation. It’s why you can get free or super cheap shipping from China. Like it’s ridiculous that I could get free shipping on my Pangu Commander when it would have cost more than what I paid for the item shipped to ship it the town next door. The postal union once again wasn’t really meant for large scale commerce but for correspondence and stuff. Each package sent to the us cost our postal system a minimum of a dollar to subsidize so when these retailer are sending 3-6 million packages a day through the postal system it adds up.

While a lot of the tariff policy targets China because they’re our geopolitical rival, they also have been abusing rules and systems in ways that weren’t really part of the spirit of those laws and systems.

Once again this isn’t even getting to the blatant IP issues with those sites.
 
canprime said:
Basically your de minimis rule was supposed to help keep low cost items from getting hit with duties/fees higher than the product price itself. However over the years the constant increase in the amount got out of hand. I mean $800??? That means you guys get a huge benefit to buy from outside the US and not get hit with duties/fees/taxes. Most countries don't have anywhere near that high an amount because of protectionism.

Chinese companies have used these types of rules, and other loopholes, to muscle out a lot of small to midsize companies. It was supposed to be a way to help China become a developed nation, which they have. Yet no one has had the balls to confront China on this and actually remove all the beneficial rules and loopholes they have used for years. Because of course we want cheap goods (official or not).

I'm not a Trump fan, but you guys have been benefiting from this rule for a long time ($800 was implemented in 2015 under Obama). The question now is who will blink first, the Chinese companies or the American consumer?
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Yeah the $800 value really caused these sites to balloon. I expect the eventual resolution to be lowering it down to a more reasonable level like $200.
 
I don't see any reason to expect anything reasonable out of the administration's economic policy. It's going to take the courts or Congress to make that happen. There are no grownups in the room.
 
I submitted cancellation requests for every outstanding preorder I had on Entertainment Earth. They have "tariff price increase" as a choice in the reason drop down menu so I chose that. All of my figures had gone up in price since I preordered them.
 
Not to be alarmist but should we all ship our POLs even if they aren’t due for awhile? How long could BBTS survive at this point if all this stuff stays in place long?
 
PanchaMaestro said:
Not to be alarmist but should we all ship our POLs even if they aren’t due for awhile? How long could BBTS survive at this point if all this stuff stays in place long?
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I have no POL, but I've also been wondering how long these companies will be able to keep afloat.
 
I’ve got no POL at the moment and preemptively cancelled most of my preorders. To answer an earlier question… nope, not having fun yet.
 
Woof, so the Mondo Peter Venkman I have PO'd at EE might cost as much as the two pack that I passed on because it was too expensive... or MORE. Yikes.

Or none of this happens. Or all of it happens.

I currently have a third party cloak I ordered on Amazon on the way from (I think) China. I wonder how that works, and if I'll be given a bill when it arrives (slated for May 2nd delivery)

And if I return it, do I get my tariff $ back?

EDIT: Just got an email from EE. Venkman jumped up $10. Not too bad. But also, just $10 of mine being burned while rich people get tax breaks.
 
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I got an EE email as well, and the three things I had on pre-order each jumped roughly 10% in price. Probably not quite. I originally ordered them with a promo discount, so I'll probably hang onto them, but I will say that I took that as fairly restrained on EE's part, considering.
 
I wonder if the increased prices at EE are based on the current tariff percentage? We've all figured out by now that it isn't a straight up add on of the tariff percentage to the price but none of us really know exactly what it is going to be. If a $100 figure is just going up to $110 that isn't the end of the world. Yeah it sucks and is totally unnecessary but that wouldn't nuke my collecting habits. Would I cut back? Yes, but I need to do that anyway. I just wish we knew exactly how it is all going to shake out but how can we when the Trump administration itself doesn't even know.
 
I wondered the same. I know the first email they sent had a lot of wording about them trying to absorb as much of the impact themselves as they could.
 
It is in the best interest of the toy companies and the toy stores to keep us collecting. Without us they cease to exist. They know we all have our limits so I'm sure there is going to be a balancing act with what they can absorb and the amount of profit they can get by on until this all blows over. No one wants to shut down a company or store only for a new president to come along in 4 years and fix this.
 
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