145% Tariffs on Chinese yo-yo's

Yeah I’m watching folks that pre ordered machines freak out cause they are passing the tariffs off to the customers for shipping the product. Which I get but if you already paid a bunch for a machine and have to essentially pay that cost again to get it out of China it’s a complete lose on some end.

Interesting point. I believe that most of that tariff was absorbed by Chinese manufacturers and the surging dollar. This time that relief seems remote.

Bst will be fire though

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I absolutely hate this all around for everyone. So many people go to FPM when starting up a small yoyo hobby business, Lord knows if I ever started one I would do the same.

It impacts the hobby, and the livelihood of the workers at FPM that have brought us joy. It impacts yoyoexpert sales. From above in the thread it hurts US manufactures, and to your point, odds are that a lot of raw materials are outsourced and then turned into domestic aluminum. Everyone loses.

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Bro I’d be crying if I were them ngl, bro I’m debating on selling my new yoyo with how to price it right? And I’m like yeah imma settle for $65.69 because I think affordability is key. BRO I WOULDN’T EVEN BREAK EVEN WITH THESE TARIFFS LIKE :skull:. Thank God I managed to get it shipped before it but like dang man it still sucks cuz idk what to do moving forward, I really want to do cool niche stuff but idk if it’ll even be possible anymore

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Local (non-yo-yo) retailers are saying that they will have to raise prices once they sell through pre-tariffed supply.

Prices will have to go up to maintain current margins. Some industries may be able to sacrifice margins to buoy demand.

Businesses will be stuck between higher costs and customers with lower overall disposable income.

Adding to the headache, if tariffs are removed without sufficient warning, importers will be on the hook for the inflated cost of previously imported goods. Reducing orders to avoid exposure will only drive prices higher, reducing demand, etc.

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Another note too, how much of a price increase will the consumers tolerate? Say if a popular selling yoyo went from being $50 retail to $60 retail, how many buyers would decide that is too expensive? What if its $50 to $70? $80? The impact of the price increase will be interesting to see. Yoyos aren’t exactly a necessary good, they are more of a luxury.

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Regardless of the tariffs ending right away the impact will be felt for months in even just the couple of weeks the impact will ripple.

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OK, no off-topic stuff… :slight_smile: I have already had my allotment of posts removed this week.

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Okay fair.

In that case let’s get YoYo’s reclassified. Yo-yos are now laptops!!! Those are exempt

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Right? Get those highly-paid YoyoFactory lobbyists in there ASAP.

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A potential positive: people turned off by prices of new releases (or just lack thereof) may buy up many good yo-yos from the last few years that are still in stock.

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Good looking out. Shameless plug for the 7075 yoyo below under $50

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Yeah I have a list I just need my wife to ignore the bank account for a weekend lol

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No plug for Ernie is shameless. He is an icon.

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100 percent agreed

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Well, they can be kept on top of you on your lap, so yeah, lets go with they are now laptops.

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Is there really a 145% tarriff on yoyos? If so my latest realease will definitely not come to YYE.

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Trump has placed tariffs of up to 145% on Chinese goods. China has hit back with 125% on US products…

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If these tariffs stay long term I wonder if machine shops in other countries that are subject to lower tariffs might start to emerge to serve US yo-yo brands. Similar to how, after the tariffs in 2017, sneaker production moved in large part from China to Vietnam. I’m a bit doubtful of this actually happening though, even aside from whether these tariffs will stay long term, because of how small and trust based the yo-yo brand to machinist relationship has to be given the small size of most companies (one bad order has been shown to effectively kill small brands in the past). Also, it’s still a very small market.

A separate point that I think will be interesting to monitor is how non-US based brands will react. The US I’m sure is still a not insignificant market even for the likes of Empathy/YJ/etc who have strong local fanbases. But I wonder if they’ll focus more on marketing to European/Asian markets given the raised cost and therefore potential decrease in demand from the US.

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