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Don't think any bean counters at Trek HQ would have accepted to have container leave the assembly plant in Taiwan to get packed into container (labor and pallet fee), get sent to Kaoshiung port (transport fee), get on a boat and shipped to australia (maritime shipping fee), get cleared for customs (transport company custom handling fee and governement duty fee) just to sit in a warehouse unsold. waiting for another market to need them, repeat that shipping process and in the end up paying almost twice the shipping cost with current container cost fluctuating between 5000 to 10 000 USD...

Not to take away from the conversation on tariffs, but seeing that photo of Zink's new frame in the tech rumors thread got me wondering... is the goal to just sell enough frames to offset the cost of making the frame that Zink wants to ride? Do Zink & co (I don't know who the '& co' are in this scenario, to be honest, but I assume he has some financial partners or backers involved) think they can sell enough frames/bikes to turn a significant profit? What is the expectation or plan here? It seems like they're trading on Zink's...

It should also be mentioned that there will be retaliatory tariffs imposed by other countries. So, your reward for already making products here? Now, they'll be harder to sell elsewhere. Yay. Then there are tariff exclusions or exemptions, which can be freely given to companies friendly to the administration. Smaller businesses or those without political connections may get stuck with the higher tariffs, which can hurt their ability to compete, even if they produce similar goods or services.

I think we all know universal tariffs will be universally bad, but the really interesting aspect is how America's truly believe their economy is in bad shape, when in reality is the envy of the told and by far the most successful over the last few years. If the tariffs come in hard and fast I definitely think it will push some companies over the edge, the bike companies are very precariously perched right now. Having to pay 10% extra on all Shimano/SRAM parts for OEM builds will be a massive burden, when we know the market will not tolerate...

wtf, they thought 1 in 250 people in the whole of Australia was going to buy a trek mtb lol. Delusional.

Tariffs and manufacturing bikes the USA: Last time Trump was in office, his tariffs on foreign made raw aluminum increased the price of domestically produced aluminum by 30% overnight. It was a significant cost increase to manufacturing bikes in the USA. Adding tariffs on complete bikes is a little different, but history has shown that increased import taxes (aka tariffs) increase costs for consumers and don't necessarily increase competitiveness for domestic manufacturing. See above example. My crystal ball says this about complete bike tariffs: if you increase the price of some things in the market, the price of all things...

I'm one of those kooks who's a big fan of aggressive industrial policy to build up domestic industries, with the rapid growth and diversification of South Korea's industry in the 20th century as the classic textbook example, but yikes! Industrial policy is supposed to be a holistic thing, with taxes AND investment, and ideally the investment part comes BEFORE the taxes. Even in the case of South Korea the success story, it was pretty rough for a while! Like, decades. Buying a Hyundai car or Samsung refrigerator in 2024 is pretty great. But only being able to buy those products...

Generally speaking, imposing blanket tarrifs on imported goods without first investing significantly in domestic manufacturing is a really good way to make everything get really expensive really fast. Nothing wrong with wanting a strong self sufficient and independent economy and strong domestic manufacturing, honestly it's better that way, but a tarrif like that is putting the wagon before the horse.

Canyon e-bikes: so hot right now! Wonder how REI feels about Canyon announcing a major recall right after their team-up...

Not shut down related but Canyon has a big ebike recall that should probly go on the home page. I don't want to paste the source but hopefully Spomer gets a PR email to post up later.

Look at how long Specialized has had the Levos on sale.. it's been crazy..

I think a lot of people are underestimating the quantity of "in stock" bikes at certain companies

Very badly. Makes all imported frames and parts more expensive, passes on those costs to consumers. Frames and parts in the country are already discounted to sell, meaning they won't be ordering any more at a 10%+ increased price as they can't already move the cheaper ones. A universal tariff is a horrendous economic policy

Not to be overtly political, but the US’s once and future president has indicated he intends to impose significant tariffs on foreign manufactured goods. Let’s assume for discussion that this actually happens -- anyone care to conjecture what effect such a policy would have on this industry?

I'm not really sure where to put this – it isn't about a company going to the wall – but I think it's relevant to the industry's current situation. One of the local suspension dealers has marked down its Flight Attendant Enduro Kits by 50-55%, meaning it now costs significantly less than putting a full set of plain "dumb" Ultimate level suspension on a bike.

It's kinda wild how similar each of those firms employee/revenue ratio is: Santa Cruz = 1 employee per $283k revenue Specialized = 1 employee per $318k revenue Trek = 1 employee per $319k revenue

According to Growjo.com SC's revenue is around $93.4m with 329 employees, Specialized around $999.5m with 3145 employees and Trek with $1.4 billion and 4386 employees, making Specialized more than 10 times and Trek around 15 times the size of SC.

I don't think so.. SC can't be doing the volume that Trek and SBC are doing with the low end MTBs, hybrids and kids bikes..SC is more of a mainstream boutique company that focuses more on the higher end of things, Also, Trek and SBC have road lines where Pon relies on Cannondale and Cervelo for that.. Cannondale would be closer to Trek and SBC than SC as they are generally viewed as #4 in the US market..

Thanks, all valid points, but I was actually thinking on a smaller scale that might slip under the oversight of a board. The owner of company A could not take outside capital and struggle to scale up all while making less than, say 100K/year. Or the owner of company A could aggressively raise money which inflates the value of the company. A higher company evaluation would warrant the CEO/owner taking a higher salary, and they could reasonably get the board to approve, say a 200/year salary. That might not look too unreasonable when it all goes south, but in the...

That's about the way I figured it went down based on some of the same things you mentioned.. I guess it all depends on how the contract is written up, but it looks like a lot was spent on equipment and acquiring product to sell.. More equipment than they needed and more product than they could move.. Now, this is where the "right-sizing" begins..