important Tariff information relating to all orders and shipments to the U.s.a.

Tarriff Update as at Aug 29,2025

*** Please note that earlier this week, the President of the United States unilaterally signed an Executive Order effectively cancelling the long-standing De Minimis tax exemption [on all shipments valued at less than $800] resulting in steep tariffs on all goods - regardless of the value - shipping from Canada into the United States. In an ass-backwards approach and rather than the tariffs, taxes and duties being collected at time of delivery, we here in Canada are required to prepay these tariffs in advance and prior to shipping to the US and the add those additional fees to the final sale, effectively passing the tariffs through to the [US] consumer. This is the US President’s way of trying to hide the devastating effect that these tariffs are having on the average US citizen.

To calculate these tariffs, it is now mandatory that we use the Zonos Prepay app which scans a picture of the item, and using AI, arbitrarily determines the makeup of the item and guess-timates country of origin, and then subjectively determines the value of the item upon which it calculates the tariffs, duties and taxes owed. Frankly this app is bullshit. We put it through a series of tests where we submitted for example a picture of our standard SG CTS wiring harness kit, and despite the fact that all of the parts were made in the USA (CTS pots, Switchcraft toggle switch & output jack and CDE Orange Drop tone capacitors), the app came back and determined that the country of origin was - wait for it - China! and it promptly assessed a 35% tariff! So an $80 USD wiring harness kit is now calculated to incur an additional $24 USD in tariffs, taxes and duties, totalling $104 USD. Unfortunately all of these tariffs, duties and taxes will be added to the base purchase price of our products and passed on to you, the consumer. You have your President to thank for that!

Regrettably, going forward, all US-bound orders will be assessed these additional tariffs, duties and taxes, the full amount of which will be payable in advance in USD via PayPal. We fully expect that these tariffs will have a significant negative impact on our relationship with our US customer base. Thankfully we have customers across Canada and around the world - including our friends in Mexico, Europe (Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain!), Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Japan and a whole host of other countries with whom we can trade freely.

This trade war will pass and maybe one day things will get back to the way they once were, in the meantime we just have to figure out how best to ride out the storm!

peace out