The bigger shipping whiplash will be if and when China and U.S. come to a deal and the China tariffs are reduced.
The floodgates of containers that are currently sitting on factory floors in China will be released simultaneously, ships will be backlogged, delayed, and ocean freight rates will shoot up, ports will be backed up, longshoreman union will use it as an opportunity to strike adding more delays, and it will be Covid Logistics 2.0. We've seen this movie before.
I am shipping out our next container of inventory this month to try and get ahead of the above nightmare scenario... at risk of paying more than $300,000 in tariffs on the container when it arrives on U.S. soil if a trade deal is not struck, as my crystal ball says "U.S. will reduce the tariffs on China within the next 6 weeks". But no one really knows.
I'd rather have expensive bikes in stock than no bikes in stock.
My brand, and many others are making moves on their supply chains to be able to avoid the worst of the tariffs going forwards. But these changes take 6-12 months minimum to implement, not days.
We started selling pre-owned Bunch Bikes on consignment on our website as a way to get more affordable bikes in people's hands (as well as add an additional income as our gross margins are getting really compressed by the tariffs). No tariffs on used bikes.
