Product Stock Issues

Hello to the Combat Robot Community. For those who don’t know me personally, my name is Seth Schaffer, and I am the founder of Just ‘Cuz Robotics and the only full-time employee. You may have noticed an increasing number of my products are out of stock right now, including most of my drive motors and hubmotors, which are some of my top selling products. This is entirely a result of the current tariffs on all imports from China. Nearly all out-of-stock products are ones for which I have ordered restocks weeks or months ago, and are either in production or already completed production. However, I rely on China to manufacture the vast majority of these products. As a small business at my scale, China is the only option for most of these types of hobby robotics components, and it is not realistic to try and source everything from the US as the prices are many times higher and/or production capacity simply doesn’t exist here at all. Even if I wanted to switch sources to other countries, I now have over $20,000 of goods I already paid for sitting in factories and warehouses overseas, which I do not have the financial means to import. With the current tariff rate as of 5/5/25 I’d need to pay an additional $29,000+ at the time of import, which I cannot afford.

To give a sense of what this means let's use real numbers. My DartBox Gecko V2 4mm motors for instance sell for $26. With the current tariffs I would lose money on every sale if I did not increase prices. To make the same profit as before the price will need to rise to $41.73. I don’t expect even a quarter of my existing customers would pay such inflated prices. As a result, I am forced to simply tell my suppliers to hold onto my finished products and wait to see if the tariff rates drop to a more reasonable level.

I love my customers and I will do whatever is in my power to avoid raising prices, but even with a 20% or 30% tariff, some of my products will not be profitable. The tariff rates have changed numerous times in the past 3 weeks and it’s impossible to predict what will happen or when. I promise I’ll do what I can to absorb the costs when it makes sense, but when the difference is so great as to lose money on every sale I have no choice but to stop selling that product for a while.  If and when tariffs drop to a suitable level, I should be able to quickly restock many missing items, so please be patient. Thank you!