The Clearance Sale is Ending!
I know I’ve been posting more on my Blog a lot more lately than I have in years, but there’s a lot happening and updates keep coming!
Bottom Line Up Front:
Clearance Sale ends on November 3rd, Japan time. Motul products are on sale and I also fixed the shipping system so the costs aren’t wildly overcharged. Shipping to the US is still a mess due to the tariffs. I’m going camping like right now and I’m running late so please excuse any typos or other mistakes in this Blog post as I won’t be proofreading it.
The longer version:
Clearance Sale
My Clearance Sale is coming to an end! If you haven’t seen my previous Blog posts about it, here’s a quick recap of a bunch of changes:
For a variety of reasons, I’m closing things down in the US and handling all my inventory management and shipping myself once again. To reduce the cost of relocating my inventory and whatnot from the US to Japan, I’ve got the things still there listed on Clearance at deep discounts - just about everything is below cost at this point. But, my loss is your gain and selling it off will ease the pain of shipping what’s left to Japan, so I’ve gotta do what I’ve gotta do.
Just to add jazz it up one last time, I’ve created an additional 5% discount for all Clearance Sale and Garage Sale items on top of the already discounted prices. No coupon code necessary - the coupon is applied automatically during checkout.
I’m going camping this weekend to get a good old fashioned nature reset, and I’ll be back on Monday. That means Redpants and Redpants Japan will be closed and I won’t have access to emails or orders. I’ll be taking down the Clearance Sale listings when I get back on Monday, but I don’t know what time I’ll be able to get into my system so I can’t say what time specifically the sale ends.
This shouldn’t affect anyone too much as Monday is a holiday in Japan and it’s effectively the weekend in North America, but since I tend to work 7 days a week and ship orders 6-7 days a week, it’s worth saying there will be a slight delay to email responses and order shipments this weekend.
Check out my Promotions page for more information about the Clearance Sale.
Motul Sale and Shipping Corrections
Also in my Promotions page is a sale on Motul lubrication products! It’s pretty simple: 10% off from now until November 27th. No coupon code necessary, you should see the discount in your cart and then applied automatically during checkout.
I’ve already gotten a couple of orders for Motul products that should have gotten the discount but didn’t. When I dug into it, I found that I’d fat-fingered the date while setting it up and it was configured incorrectly. I’ve fixed that and already refunded the orders that didn’t get the discount when they should have, but please let me know if you put in an order and don’t get the discount. I’ll be checking orders to make sure it’s correct regardless, so even if you don’t say anything to me, I’ll refund any mistakes anyway.
Another thing I’d botched with Motul products is the shipping information. The shipping charges were way over-priced. I believe this was because of the conversion of my shipping system when I moved things to Japan - I hadn’t fixed the listings for Motul products to be in metric measurements rather than cheeseburgers, so it was messing up the shipping costs and making them substantially higher. If you’ve placed an order for Motul products in August or September and think you overpaid, please contact me and let me know your order number and I’ll fix it right away.
Shipping and Tariffs
I’ve beaten this to death in my last few Blog posts but since it’s such a hot topic, I want to keep it current so it isn’t missed.
Now that I’m handling my inventory and shipping from Japan, anything “kept in stock at Redpants” is now in Japan. That means any shipments of these items that are being delivered to the US are now international shipments, and are now subject to the Trump administration’s tariffs. There used to be an $800 de minimis exemption for shipments to the US, which meant the majority of orders were not subject to import duties or tariffs. However, as part of the US Government’s new tariffs program, the de minimis exemptions have been ended so virtually all shipments to the US are being charged import duties based on the new tariffs. Not only does this add substantially to how much Americans are paying for things, it’s also making shipments much more difficult. I’m doing everything I can to reduce the pain of these new fees but I can only do so much within the bounds of the law.
The cost of shipping does suck, especially with the added tariffs on top, but I’m still doing everything I can to keep pricing down. Since I’m now handling my inventory and shipping myself, I no longer have to pay a third party for those services. I’ve also reduced my margins to lower the overall cost of orders for you guys and help offset the higher shipping charges. The changes mean that although shipping costs have gone up, I’ve been able to keep product prices the same (or even lower them in some cases) despite prices going up for many of the things I sell.
Three more things to mention:
The new import regulations have been implemented so poorly that it’s impossible to predict import duties as they are not consistently applied. I’ve had identical shipments charged completely different import duties and there’s no rhyme or reason as to why it’d differ whatsoever.
Even if the import duties could be predicted, I can’t include them in my pricing because they only apply to shipments to the US and I’m not going to jack up pricing for Canucks, Aussies, Kiwis or any other cutely nicknamed folks just because the US has lost its mind.
As part of that incredibly poor implementation of the regulations and then adding in UPS’s incredibly poor handling of it, some shipment deliveries are getting delayed so please keep an eye on your tracking information. I update orders with tracking info when I package them and they ship out that same day or the next (depending on what time I package them), but UPS’s tracking info may take 2-3 days to begin updating. Once it starts updating please keep an eye on it and let me know asap if there are any delays or other concerns with the package.
Moving on before I get even more ranty…
Keep Current
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Okay, that’s it this time. I actually have more to share but I’m behind schedule to leave for my camping trip!
Yes… I’m taking my V8 Vantage…. My first time using it for camping…. pray for me lol