Rifle Scopes Tariff effects on imported optics

At SHOT Show tariff price increases were discussed
Arken’s tariff price increases go into affect tomorrow
DNT increases were announced and are slowly going into affect, product by product, as they run out of existing inventory
My understanding is there will be price increases from other of the optics brands
 
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I am ignorant to the particulars of the tariffs as a whole, but reading and talking to a few reps there are work around to diminish the tariffs, such as assembling the end product in the the USA. That's supposed to be one of the benefits to the tariffs,. It's scary times, our economy is still struggling but we have to do something.
 
Prices will go up.

Most of the time, it will be the tariff amount plus a little more for “administration” of the whole thing.
Yeah, pretty much any time an industry can increase prices blame free (obamacare, covid, tariffs, etc.) you can bet a lot of companies will increase the amount their extra cost plus a chunk more to pad some profits. You can make a case that it helps offset the reduced volume of sales that higher prices could cause, but if you look at the balance sheets it rarely works out that way.

As long as consumers keep buying at higher prices it's hard to blame companies for grabbing some extra profits while the gov't takes all the blame. Consumers are at the same time the most powerful group in existence, and so stupid as a whole they are unable to wield it.
 
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How about we discuss the regulations of a burdensome federal, state and local government making it cheaper to ship and import products versus making them here.

I have looked for American made products when I can, but for the sake of argument, we were buying cheap goods and living with the shortcomings, now we wanna complain about having to pay more for the same short comings.

There are options for every product, we just don't want to pay for it and we want to blame the manufacturer, when in fact it was us and government that created the problem to begin with.
 
Just curious if any of our vendors or reps have been in talks about potential price increases due to tarrifs. Would love to know what the likes of vortex, Armament, ZCO, NF , S&B , ect are planning to do in the short and long term.

I have discussed it, but as of right now as of this post nothing is confirmed yet. I'll say that if there is something you want and can get it, it is probably cheaper right now :(
 
Tariffs always get passed on to the consumer in the long run. Unless the costs to manufacture magically go down everything coming across the border unless it’s exempt is going to increase in price with new tarrifs.
Especially when the tariff is equal or greater than the actual margins...
 
Yeah, pretty much any time an industry can increase prices blame free (obamacare, covid, tariffs, etc.) you can bet a lot of companies will increase the amount their extra cost plus a chunk more to pad some profits. You can make a case that it helps offset the reduced volume of sales that higher prices could cause, but if you look at the balance sheets it rarely works out that way.

As long as consumers keep buying at higher prices it's hard to blame companies for grabbing some extra profits while the gov't takes all the blame. Consumers are at the same time the most powerful group in existence, and so stupid as a whole they are unable to wield it.



This is not a large margin or profit industry, many of us are doing this because we enjoy the industry and community. The owner of CST has multiple businesses, some that make way more money (Construction, drafting,engineering) than CST.

If CST doesn't break even or becomes a burden than we will no longer exist as is or he will sell it.
I'll go back to selling jewelry at the Pow Wows o_O
 
Especially when the tariff is equal or greater than the actual margins...
Yeah anyone thinking that these companies who are primarily development and outsourcing outfits are going to be able to bring a state of the art factory which they don’t even own stateside are fooling themselves.
 
As of this moment, Arken Optics and Accessories price increases are going into affect today. DNT Optics has announced their price increases, however, those increases will only happen once they run out of existing inventory and tariffs affect new deliveries. We are not raising pricing until that happens as well.
We have yet to be informed by any other brands about imminent increases, although I did receive a few inquiries from different brands asking what other brands have announced. We will keep you informed as new information becomes available.
 
I am ignorant to the particulars of the tariffs as a whole, but reading and talking to a few reps there are work around to diminish the tariffs, such as assembling the end product in the the USA. That's supposed to be one of the benefits to the tariffs,. It's scary times, our economy is still struggling but we have to do something.
They already do what i dub Kia tarif mod.

In the past Korean car imports were subject to hefty tarrifs in EU , the importers had storage and a dismantling facility directly at the port. Complete cars rolled of the ship , and workers at the port dismantled some of the trim, wheels and in some cases even doors , then cars were shipped to a distribution hub that resembled them and off they went onto the market tarif free. But is already something done by many US brands. Optics were in some cases subject to hefty US tarrifs even predating this.

But end of the day your 2800$ vortex made in Japan, drops off the ship at 7-800$ so you can quickly rack up enough added value to skirt some tarrifs.
 
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i think they should have exceptions for products for which there is no american made alternatives.
perhaps this is good for leupold and why they get us military contracts?
 
Somewhere between the tariffs and the DOGE refund I bet tens of people will break even.

-Stan
I'll believe it when I see the DOGE refund. If I break even remotely even, I'll be shocked. If the administration is dead set on keeping the tariffs, they will have to push through some deep tax cuts. Otherwise, the House will be controlled by the Democrats in 2026 and they will be fully in control in 2028. We'll have the full blast of the DEI insanity back by 2029.

I am betting on this being a negotiating tactic, but time will tel..

Either way, here is the video of a quick livestream I just did on the subject.


ILya
 
How about we discuss the regulations of a burdensome federal, state and local government making it cheaper to ship and import products versus making them here.

I have looked for American made products when I can, but for the sake of argument, we were buying cheap goods and living with the shortcomings, now we wanna complain about having to pay more for the same short comings.

There are options for every product, we just don't want to pay for it and we want to blame the manufacturer, when in fact it was us and government that created the problem to begin with.
Not just regulations, you have decades of companies/industries buying politicians to make laws and trade policies that favor farming labor/manufacturing overseas and importing the products back here so they can take advantage of cheaper labor. That's not the consumers fault, that's capitalism (well really crony capitalism) leveraging it's political power to increase business profits. That's basically made it impossible to find most goods reasonably priced that are US made. Yes consumers LOVE cheap prices (just go to Walmart any day any time and you can see that, horrible shopping experience, but everyone goes there to save $), but us old timers remember that when they first started farming all those jobs/product manufacturing overseas it wasn't because we couldn't afford the usual things. No one was screaming that we needed cheaper goods made in China because American goods were too expensive. Companies simply wanted a way to increase profits by reducing their costs but keeping prices the same, and they convinced politicians to pass laws that enabled them.

Unfortunately now if we're going to try and reverse it, it's going to be a painful road from a pricing standpoint. Honestly I'm not sure the average American has the patriotism anymore to accept any level of pain even if it means bringing back more American made goods. Heck just today took a 5% hit to the market.
 
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This is not a large margin or profit industry, many of us are doing this because we enjoy the industry and community. The owner of CST has multiple businesses, some that make way more money (Construction, drafting,engineering) than CST.

If CST doesn't break even or becomes a burden than we will no longer exist as is or he will sell it.
I'll go back to selling jewelry at the Pow Wows o_O
Agreed, I should have been more clear, I more meant my comment for the manufacturers, not the retailers/resellers. I'd imagine resellers are the ones impacted the worst. They get the angst from the consumer, and have to set prices to try to make sales, but the manufacturer gets their price increase regardless.

It's like eggs, perfect example egg companies get to blame the "bird flu" which is a real problem it just has not impacted supply as much as they'd like you to think based on prices. The largest egg distributor in the US, responsible for about 20% of the egg market, not only have they kept egg volume constant since 2021 but increasing their prices drove their profits up almost 1000% over that time. In fact in 2023 they were required to pay $20 million in a settlement that accused them of deceptive practices by conspiring to limit egg production.

When they asked the CEO about the high egg prices and their huge profits recently, he just said that consumers should blame the resellers because they don't set consumer pricing the resellers do.......these are the companies you are dealing with, they will never ever do the right thing for the average American unless it just happens to also increase profits. If they can use some excuse to increase prices blame free, they will do it every time, all the time.
 
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Agreed, I should have been more clear, I more meant my comment for the manufacturers, not the retailers/resellers. I'd imagine resellers are the ones impacted the worst. They get the angst from the consumer, and have to set prices to try to make sales, but the manufacturer gets their price increase regardless.

It's like eggs, perfect example egg companies get to blame the "bird flu" which is a real problem it just has not impacted supply as much as they'd like you to think based on prices. The largest egg distributor in the US, responsible for about 20% of the egg market, not only have they kept egg volume constant since 2021 but increasing their prices drove their profits up almost 1000% over that time. In fact in 2023 they were required to pay $20 million in a settlement that accused them of deceptive practices by conspiring to limit egg production.

When they asked the CEO about the high egg prices and their huge profits recently, he just said that consumers should blame the resellers because they don't set consumer pricing the resellers do.......these are the companies you are dealing with, they will never ever do the right thing for the average American unless it just happens to also increase profits. If they can use some excuse to increase prices blame free, they will do it every time, all the time.




Again, this is a bad analogy. Resellers in this industry, do not set the prices period. MSRP, map, what we have to pay the manufacturer for their product is all controlled by the manufacturer.