A while back some rad Xbiking dads recommended the FollowMe Tandem as the best option for attaching kid bikes to dad rigs. Soon after, I started working on piecing together a kit by getting the coupling from eBay and installation kit from small bike shops, since hardly anyone sells it in North America. There was one shop in Portland that I learned was a distributor, but when I finally got around to placing an order for the parts I was missing, they stopped carrying their parts.
I found that Trucavelo in Canada was also a distributor and had everything I needed. Initially, working with them was great. I did my homework and pieced a parts list together, and they helped me over email, giving me a PDF of the full parts list from the manufacturer, and what to get from their site. When I placed my order, the checkout process was easygoing and the prices went up a but once they detected I'm in the US, but I was OK with the markup. It came out to around $159 USD for everything.
All went smoothly until I got an email from UPS a few days later asking me to pay $201. Initially, I admit that I'd spaced on all of the tariff nonsense and wasn't sure why UPS was shaking me down to receive my shipment. I reached out to Trucavelo, and they said the UPS fee is a 126% tariff cost on Chinese goods, and it was out of their control. I was understanding of the fact that it is out of their control, but I think at the very least they can put a banner up on their site and warn US customers at checkout. When all is said and done, I will have paid $600 for a product that typically sells for $375.
Anyway, I figured I'd give a heads up to any US sub members planning on making an order for bike parts soon. Try to find what you need already stateside. And if you can't, be prepared to pay more and thank our Dear Leader for making ordering bike parts great again.
by riomx
11 Comments
I would recommend pushing back in some way. They are in over there heads trying to keep up with the changing policy, and it just got dropped back down to 10% (+20% pre-existing). You could reject the shipment, and ask them to ship it again, and it should only be 30%, or try and negotiate with UPS. Their customer support is actually pretty good.
Dang . Wonder if you can reject the shipment. Thats fucked. Looks like bad luck just caught in that small window when the big tariff was in effect and before it was lowered. There was only like 3 days where that was possible.
When I worked in software there was a slogan that we needed to force the customer to make a “make/buy” decision. That always struck me as arrogent and stupid. Do we have the concept of make or buy for anything else in life? Well I guess we do now. At 600USD it would start to be practical to get a metal fab shop to make a one off.
I’m confused. If it was imported to Canada then sold via retailer in Canada to you then how would they even know that the ultimate point of origin was China? Tariff price should have been from Canada at that point.
Or did it ship directly from China?
Seems like US problems.🤷♀️ Not us. US. Yours.
This kinda just sounds like normal UPS shenanigans. Pre retaliatory tariffs, anything we bought from you folks down south would usually get an absurd brokerage charge from UPS, and have it cross the border free with USPS. No one willingly buys from the US that ships UPS unless it’s urgent. I can only imagine it’s worse now.
Enjoy what you voted for and your trade war.
Cleverly they don’t seem to give a breakdown of the charges. I would guess that most of it is their own brokerage fees, not duties.
Did you accept the order? Or did you throw it back on the company to eat the shipping and time wasted?
Yeesh that’s insane! So sorry you’re getting screwed over like this. Perfect example of the average person getting fucked by the tarrifs that supposedly “help blue collar folks”.
As others have said, definitely try and push back, especially now that the tariff is only 30% on Chinese goods
Anything with aluminum is getting flagged everywhere and unless you’re familiar with the specifics and exemptions you’re going to get assessed a lot. Trying to blame UPS is gross, this is US politics. Blame the US.