What Will a No Deal Brexit Mean for British Bike Customers?
Following the news that Rose Bikes will be canceling all UK orders and will no longer ship any orders to the UK, citing Brexit, we decided to dig into what a potential No Deal Brexit will mean for customers buying bikes from Europe.
Is a No Deal Brexit guaranteed?
At this stage, No Deal is not guaranteed. Talks are still ongoing between UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen to try to push a Deal over the line. The situation is evolving rapidly but the main sticking point is around the rights for EU states to fish in UK waters.
The pair have until December 30, when the Transition Period ends, to strike a Deal otherwise the UK will leave the EU with No Deal and will begin trading with the bloc using World Trade Organisation rules.
What does this mean for bike prices?
Brexit was one of the reasons YT Industries built its Mill brick and mortar location in Surrey.
If a No Deal happens, then Global Tariffs will kick in. Britain previously enjoyed free trade with the EU, which meant no tariffs, but if a Deal is not struck then these tariffs of 14% for bikes, 6% for e-bikes and 4% for most parts will take effect immediately. It is almost certain that these prices will be passed directly onto the customer.
YT is one of the brands to already confirm this will happen. It said, "Before Brexit, the total price you paid was the sum of the bike + bike box + shipping + 20% VAT for the UK. YT will still be able to charge the entire fees upfront, but the following two extra charges will occur; import handling costs to the UK, and customs duties on the value of the goods."
Canyon also said: "We’re doing all we can to minimise disruption while we modify our processes to comply with new legislation as a result of Brexit. This includes changes to our pricing format to include any duties applicable to the products ordered."
For non-EU bikes, we previously reported that bikes entering the UK will get 0% tariffs for up to 12 months following a No Deal Brexit, which is down from the 17% duty currently applied. This should make non-EU bikes cheaper for UK consumers and there is no indication this legislation has changed at the time of writing.
What about shipping?
Shipping costs are already increasing on bikes being sent from the EU thanks to a fixed import fee of £85.50 that has been introduced on bikes. Prices are likely to stay high in the event of a No Deal Brexit, that is if you can get a bike shipped at all.
Rose Bikes has already stopped shipping to the UK as reported yesterday, Canyon has currently paused all shipping until 11 January and bike-discount.de simply states, "Please note that shipping to Great Britain and Ireland is currently not possible!" YT has also said, "we will not be shipping any soft goods, small parts, or accessories to the UK for the time being."
We don't expect these pauses on shipping to last forever but until the industry has a clearer picture of what the situation going forward will be, it looks like it's going to be hard to get stuff delivered from Europe without a significant cost.
What next?
Brexit is currently a moving goalpost with talks still ongoing and No Deal not yet a certainty. For now, it looks like brands are looking to cover themselves in case of this worst-case scenario but a Deal seems closer day-by-day and a trade agreement would change the situation again entirely.
Author Info:
Must Read This Week
monfoodblog.com/2012/06/21/vijs-mung-beans-in-coconut-curry
get some
www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-china-bicycles-idUSKCN1VJ1MI
Unfortunately, corruption will always rule. We just have to work and hope for the least corrupt while understanding that cheating is just a part of the human condition.
By the way, before we dis non voters too much, it should be important to understand WHY they don't vote:
www.npr.org/2020/12/15/945031391/poll-despite-record-turnout-80-million-americans-didnt-vote-heres-why
Almost 100 million disenfranchised non-voters exist because both parties have thrown them overboard. It's taken over 40 years to become a failed state so I'm not getting my hopes up for any immediate improvements.
The extremes on both sides will destroy this country.
" It's a big club and you ain't in it"
I had that carlin quote as a yard sign during the last election. The looks were worth the $40.00 I paid for it.
Yet R's took away many seats. Your narrative isn't correct.
Uh, the 'sociopathic narcissist' won. Or, actually the Chinese won the election.
rantt.com/gop-admins-had-38-times-more-criminal-convictions-than-democrats-1961-2016
On top of that you've got Trump pardoning former Republicans criminals just today. Republicans President pardoning corrupt Republicans before they even go to jail, is that what Trump meant by draining the swamp? The corruption swamp in DC is owned by Republicans, that's the one thing Trump has proven. He's the swamp master by pardoning these criminals.
www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/administration/531379-trump-pardons-individuals-charged-in-russia-probe-ex-gop-lawmakers%3famp
To help your ass from bouncing off the walls when you get down some
This last election proved that narrative wrong. Most votes ever for a republican president that many people didn't vote for and voted R down ballot.
That says a lot but you keep on keeping on and disregard numbers. Oh, and white suburbanites won it for trump, not inner-city minorities. So identity politics is dying too, thank GOD.
That also assumes there is a third party you support.
And we can just circle back to how people don't think their vote matters because they really only have two choices: D or R.
Britain was a hold out because of geography, and the timing of when other countries, collectively known as ‘Allies’ joined together to defeat one smaller (but aggressively expanding) nation.
Small nations cannot become world leaders alone, due to resources already being allocated, and the world being divided up. The smaller nations did it before by stealing other, less developed, nations resources. We now have treaties/international law in place to stop this from happening again.
Back under your bridge.
Britain never surrendered as there was no land invasion on mainland Britain, as happened in mainland Europe, as Germany didn’t build up a strong enough naval force to take all the troops and tanks required for britzkrieg before the bigger nations stepped in. Because they were breaking international law. We were paying the US back for everything they loaned us during the war until 2015.
How many small nations are global superpowers, on their own, currently?
What is going on in Belgium as regards the national governments response to COVID has nothing to do with EU policy.
But you keep living in your paranoid fantasy world, I’m sure it’s lovely. Give my regards to the lizards.
You are wrong on so many levels
It wasn't that long ago that Plague Island had a decent industrial base in manufacturing. It's still there in a shadow of its former self.
I'm hoping this f*cking shitshow will actually reignite the bike manufacturing industry in this country, I'm also hoping we'll still have toilet roll in February. That said it didn't really pan out for the UK automotive industry and that was eons before the tory party civil war broke out, if I have to ride the bicycle equivalent of the Morris Ital, manufactured by Dyson, in Malaysia, I will not be whistling Rule Britannia.
UK manufacture currently costs more, simple. Look at stanton for example, you pay a premium for a UK made frame. Orange are similar, many of their frames are made abroad, only the 'hardcore originals' remain UK manufactured.
Even if demand for UK made frames rises significantly I can't see the prices coming down to current imported prices. Of course if importing becomes more expensive then UK made may suddenly look more appealing, but either way its only going to end up being net more expensive.
Beyond that I wonder what the costs of components will be, at the end of the day on a full sus mountain bike the most money is in the bits you hang off it. There is of course some (and increasing) UK made components, but again not in the volumes to support the UK bike industry, the likes of hope are still quite niche in the grand scheme of things - and again, not cheap.
I think in general the cost of wages, manufacture and that pesky health and safety (bloody EU forcing these laws on us) leaves UK manufacture as premium relatively low volume.
I do enjoy driving my Jag though....
Whether the bike industry utilises that capability, is another question entirely.
I've recently bought a Sonder bike, Alpkit are a UK company but I think the frames are stitched together in Taiwan, the bikes are competitively priced at the moment, lets hope that sort of model can continue, I'm fairly ignorant of how a bike company who trades with say Taiwan will be affected with changes, I mean once we've de-lorried Kent.
It's an interesting point about Health and Safety which the EU has supposedly imposed on the UK, I mean we were in an agreement, so we agreed to it, or at least compromised on it at the time.
I do not work in manufacturing but I come from Dundee, known for the jute mills in the last century. My grandparents and their friends commonly had serious industrial injuries; missing fingers, hands, feet etc. Proper nasty shit, I'm not saying that's where we're heading by repealing EU H&S guidelines but I wonder how many front line industrial workers are actually dead against the health and safety measure we currently have, compared to managers who are frustrated by increasing costs and decreasing productivity.
Another way to look at it might be how company investors expect returns, the supposition that increasing annual dividends is the sign of a healthy company is one measure, but it is only one fairly limited measure. I'm not proposing nationalising Raleigh btw
We can't compete with emerging markets because we are not only paying higher wages and respecting the safety of our workers, but we are also expected to compete on financial growth each year. So the investment goes to the firms with the higher returns.
We either sacrifice workplace safety and (or) wages or returns to compete, probably even more so now we've Taken Back Control.
I suspect that is why we'll continue to see more mainstream media mockery of 'Elf and Safety' [Richard Littlejohn, Daily Mail, The past decade] than we will see media pressure for the middle classes to invest their pensions in UK industry.
That being said I own a Bird Aeris AM9 - is that classed as doing my bit for good ol Blighty?
As the reality of the situation has become clear support has dropped dramatically.
I think rejoining will happen but who knows when.
No regrets after fu****g!
I shit you not.
I don't see her much these days.
I don't see her much either.
Look at how they are trying to criminalise trespass for example, if you think relations between MTBers and the general public are tetchy now, just wait until they can call the coppers on you.
I consider myself of at least a resonable level of intelligence and i couldn't get my head around the complexities and consequences of what staying or leaving would mean (not that they were ever highlighted or explained at the time - mainly just scaremongering about stuff that wasn't even part of the vote). The average person (and i include myself) does not understand the complexities of international economic trade agreements so why on earth have them vote on it.
Add into that the misinformation from politicians, parties and business people that have their own self-rewarding agendas and it was always going to be a farce.
I think a clip from local news summed up the absurdity quite well. They interviewed two older gentlemen in the street, one Remain and one leave:
Old Guy 1: People voting to leave the EU is like turkeys voting for christmas"
Old guy 2: "Oh, so you're calling me a turkey?"
Old Guy 1: "No, i'm not calling you a turkey, i'm just saying that-"
Old Guy 2 "You just said that i'm a turkey. That's what you just said"
There still is no coherent view on what Brexit is meant to be; five years later and less than a week to go before facing that ever-looming WTO cliff-edge.
I do think brands are leaving a big part of the story out with the manufacturing and I think they do it because it is not glamorous and they would rather just keep it quiet. I don't think it is a conspiracy to treat people and workers bad but I do think they would rather not think about it and they would rather us to the same.
If you are with Amazon services that's not very difficult to change.
Amazon being probably the biggest DC provider out there and they do a good job.
Imagine if Amazon did haulage, transportation etc too.
The purchasing company's department/branch might even purchase from the head office or other office of a company, both in different locations than where you might think, especially when it's for significant sums of money.
If bikes are imported directly into the UK from the far east then the prices should be about the same.
The trade deal is only relevant to goods that are made or mostly assembled in the UK/EU, so regardless of a deal happening, tariffs will be due on any non-EU goods crossing the border.
And for a service you should only have to be charged for the service costs.
Imagine going from a beemer to a jag oooooh
And I should say, Im not a German car driver.. I was just pointing it out
Looks like the price of that new Santa Cruz may actually go down! At least for a while.
I feel bad that so many English people voted to remain and are being dragged out of the European Union by racist pensioners.
With that said England seem to vote for the Conservatives every year so I don’t have that much sympathy.
I’m sure once Scotland is independent and a member of the E.U. again we will accept immigration from south of the border.
And before you start wondering why tf I stayed in Scotland when my parents and two younger brothers moved to BC. I am married, wife didn't want to go and tbh when they moved all those years ago I wasn't into mtb. Had I been, I may have left the then girlfriend behind lol.
I had a burglary where some scrotes nicked my bikes and the kids bikes. We were looking to replace the kids bikes on the sly, hide the burglary from them and stop them getting upset / distressed, only the bikes were Orbea and they have ceased shipping to the Uk pending all this mess being sorted out. On top of that the world has gone bike mad, and Covid has caused massive issues with manufacturing and supply chains worldwide. Its a right shit storm... I'm just hoping it gets sorted quickly so the bikes are replaced by the summer when they'll be wanting to use them again...
I'm genuinely worried that might not be the case though.
Duties and tariffs are normally applied based on where the goods are manufactured and assembled. An EU-based company would have to pay these anyway before selling a bicycle to a customer in the UK. These companies also have to apply the VAT. Most EU and UK-based companies remove the VAT if the product is being shipped to say North America.
To get around paying tariffs and duties on goods that are 'in transit' but have landed in a jurisdiction after being shipped from the country of manufacture, companies use bonded warehouses. Goods in these warehouses are then sent to a final destination country where any local customs duties or tariffs are then applied. That's one solution any EU-based company could utilise to avoid double charging their UK customers on any duties or tariffs (paid once in the EU and then paid again upon entering the UK).
It’s funny to see how attitudes have changed.
I think Britain effed up with Brexit, but then they were problematic from the early days, so no real surprise. What’s sad is Brexit will harm the British people who can least afford the harm, politicians are only in it for the votes.
road.cc/content/news/british-bike-manufacturers-fearing-brexit-278373
Exactly this is the result of Johnsons gross mishandling of the Brexit negotiations
Even with a deal all imports will have significant price rises, thanks to VAT now being a separate entity for UK
50,000 extra customs agents don't pay for themselves
(that's no bauxite mines here!)
They were already expensive enough
Less competition = higher prices for consumers
Oh and plenty of boutique/niche brands will disappear or significantly realign their products.
Are they serious? That is what they found to penalize EU? They are even lower than what I thought.
And by 'they' I am not sure who I am talking about, but they surely are.
Any manufacturer/supplier/retailer who decide to cease trading with the UK are only shooting themselves in the foot. It will only open doors for UK based companies to grow and cash in.
The short term might be rough but the long term could be great. I was a remainer although with the curtains closing and the ‘deals’ looking unlikely it’s something we’ll have to ride out (excuse the pun). Britain has never ‘gave up’ - we’ve been governed by inbred idiots for hundreds of years and yet we still invent, engineer, manufacture and thrive. Brexit is just another event for the history books.
The World Wide financial bubble is about to pop! The continuous printing of currency & NO way to pay the debt the end of the financial farce is near.
You should all be reading history books right now the next Depression is about to unfold.
Last time I checked Ireland is still part of the EU so why are some companies about to stop shipping there if and when Brexit goes ahead!!??
That’s a quote from Boris and one of his newspapers about 5 minutes ago
Tariffs are only part of it
Jaguar still manufacture here, they reckoned that in a no deal tariffs will cost £1bn extra year to keep their factory here, but either way non tariff barriers will add £1.5bn a year
The government ha e said we will have to hire an extra 50,000 new customs agents for this extra bureaucracy.
That's why these negotiations revolved around state aid & level playing field committments, Jaguar, Nissan & others will want subsidies to stay here.
you mean a bigger profit for the sellers more like.
2) You can either tighten your boot laces and get on with it or sit around crying like a little bitch.
Regardless of wether you are listening to other peoples views or concerns it’s happening and there’s little you can do at this late stage
As for having empathy , that’s not going to change anything either
The irony of commenting that we shouldn't be discussing the subject of the article within the comments of the article is sweet though.
We only saved Europe twice but their you go.
Why would you want a non elected bunch of cowboys running the show
Or the EU that bailed out Greece and Ireland and never took a penny off us for either?
Or the EU that cost us less in 47 years than the Brexit process has cost the UK taxpayer in 4?
On the whole I feel they were pretty good value.
Honestly as a nation we sound like a crying 5 year old complaining that their big brother won't let them play with the big boys.
The European Parliament are elected. How do you think Farage et al became MEPs?
The House of Lords are not elected.
Saved Europe twice? You might want to check with the US and Russia on that...
We could get a much better trade deal than non EU countries, by being in the EU.