MAFEX DC Figures

yojoebro82 said:
I'm ignorant of all that too so I'm sticking with bbts and hoping for the best.
Click to expand...
Just be aware that BBTS is going to tack on someone unknown tariff amount as well. Whether that works out better or worse in the end, who knows...
 
Does anyone know when the import/tariff/whatever gets charged if you're importing?

AmiAmi didn't include any extra charge, I just had the figure + shipping. Is the Trump Tax charged at inbound customs before it's released, or does the postal carrier (USPS) collect it prior to releasing the package to me? I've ordered lots of things from overseas throughout the years, but I've never been charged import fees / tariffs / idiot taxes before. I may be mistaken, but with the de minimus thing taken out then everything under $800 gets the fee, right? If it's charged at customs, then the ports are going to have a lot of backed up shit when people decline to pay the charges.
 
EnigmaticClarity said:
Medicom is in Japan, not China, and the Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is working to eliminate any tariffs on Japanese imports. Right now there are none so hopefully Superboy just shows up for $99 on BBTS once they get him, and hopefully he still releases in April and BBTS gets him in early May before any tariffs get assessed.

My guess is that whatever happens with the Japanese trade talks that any new tariffs get assessed well after BBTS gets their Superboy shipment in. If the release gets delayed by 2+ months then who knows, but I bet that even if Japan imports get tariffed it will be pretty small; maybe $5 to $10 extra on Mafex figures.
Click to expand...
I'm fairly certain it's based on country of manufacture. At the beginning of April I shipped out everything in my private warehouse on HLJ ahead of the tariffs. The shipment contained three Bandai model kits and 1 Good Smile model kit. Bandai and Good Smile are both Japanese companies, but on the waybill, the country of origin for the Good Smile model kit was listed as Vietnam, where it was manufactured.
 
Connor in the house, yo!

c7HQKFo.jpeg
 
TheRealSmallville said:
AmiAmi notified me that mine had arrived, so I paid for it. This morning the importing rules changed again, right? So I don't know how that will or will not affect my order. I'm terribly ignorant on how a lot of this stuff works, I dont import over $800 so I've never really had to worry about it.
Click to expand...

If you're referring to the de minimis tariffs for items under $800 then everything I've heard said that only applies to China. The Japan tariffs are on the same three-month delay that all other increased tariff prices are for the rest of the world besides China, but Trump made them an exception to the delay because they immediately retaliated with their own tariffs unlike most other countries.

I don't know if de minimis will apply to the world in a few months or not. Japan is actively working to have no increased tariffs so we'll see what happens. The entire reason for the delay was to give countries a chance to kiss Trump's arse, and the Japanese diplomats and Prime Minister are doing that so there may be no Japanese price increases at all this year depending upon how the trade talks go.
 
TheMadcapLaughs said:
I'm fairly certain it's based on country of manufacture.
Click to expand...

I've heard the opposite with a caveat--it depends upon if any work was done to the product in the intermediate country. In the tariff thread someone posted an article about the "Tijuana two-step," which is using Tijuana as an intermediary to avoid Chinese tariffs. Not sure why Tijuana is particularly attractive for this though because it can hypothetically work with any country. The loophole is this--if you're just passing a package through a country with no refinement and no repackaging then yes, you're supposed to pay the tariff on the country of manufacture and not the country it's coming from. But if you put a product into a package that says nothing about China then US Customs rarely has any way to know where the products inside of any given package were originally made and make no attempt to do so unless someone rats out a company who is exploiting this on some mass scale.

Many American companies are already planning to do the "two-step" approach of manufacturing in China, shipping to another country, doing a trivial amount of work to the product in that intermediary country or no work at all and just repackaging the products to not have Chinese shipping labels on them, and then importing from there. Or just repackaging from there and intentionally not disclosing where the majority of the product was made. Since many products are now partially manufactured in many different countries it's difficult or sometimes impossible to determine the cost of the parts that came from a country with a high tariff like China, so if work was done in the intermediate country then US Customs assigns the tariff for that country. This isn't a trivial step because you have to pay shipping charges to the intermediate country, plus you also have to pay tariffs into that country since almost every country has its own individual tariffs imposed on every other country just like the US does.

I don't think US Customs has any way of knowing where the items in a box coming from Japan were originally manufactured which is why none of the Japanese retailers who ship to America are mentioning these Chinese tariffs at all on their web sites. We also don't know who assembles Mafex figures into the box; if that's done in Japan then that avoids tariffs. My guess is everything is done in China, but once those products are in an AmiAmi box then US Customs is going to just let it go through. Envision an AmiAmi shipment with two figures in it--one Mafex manufactured entirely in China, and one from another company such as S.H. Figuarts that let's say hypothetically packaged the figure in Japan (my guess is that Bandai does everything in China, but for this example let's assume they don't). Going strictly by tariff law you'd just tariff the Mafex and not the Figuarts. Customs doesn't dig down to that detail level; they mostly just look at the labels on the package being shipped, and from the Japanese retailers that's going to just say Japan.

The de minimis tariffs will affect Inart and their new Dark Knight Rises Batman figure though since Inart is a Hong Kong company. I'm not sure any of us are going to get that figure, but hopefully I'm wrong. I'm hoping the Japanese retailers start stocking it, but I haven't seen that any are. Nerdzoic is the only US company I saw selling it, but with these new tariffs I bet people who pre-ordered there won't be getting that figure. I pre-ordered mine from a Chinese retailer, but I'm guessing that's going to fall through. Maybe the trade war will have ended by the time that figure releases, or at least that's my hope.
 
Last edited:
EnigmaticClarity said:
Many American companies are already planning to do the "two-step" approach of manufacturing in China, shipping to another country, doing a trivial amount of work to the product in that intermediary country or no work at all and just repackaging the products to not have Chinese shipping labels on them, and then importing from there.
Click to expand...
This is so crazy.
 
I got an email from BBTS telling me they increased the Superboy price due to tariffs. It my preorder it is now $105. That's still $10 cheaper than the $115 it was listed at before the madness started.

Now I hope this means that it's actually inbound and they'll get it soon.
 
Superboy's a great figure. I don't normally like soft goods on 1/12 figures, but I was surprised how well the jacket works on him. I've got Steel, Eradicator and Superboy now. I missed out on Cyborg Superman - guess I'll have to pay the aftermarket tax.
 
Superboy has hit my POL at BBTS. He came in at $105. Looking forward to competing the Reign!
 
Kal-El said:
Got mine in my POL, too. Gonna wait until at least Black Suit Superman comes out next month to ship.
Click to expand...
Oh, you think he's actually going to be there next month? I might be wrong but I think Superboy was due like 6 or 7 months ago. But Supes is a rerelease so maybe that will be different.

It's weird that Superboy is in stock now for $115 which was the preorder price when I ordered, but the tariffs brought the price down for me by $10. I don't pretend to understand anything going on with that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top