As President Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to run roughshod over the economy, one local company has gone into survival mode to weather the storm. Kyle Ranson, CEO of southeast Portland-based apparel company Showers Pass and founder of electric bike brand Vvolt says he may be forced to close as the weight of tariffs suffocate his business.
“Obviously we’re going to hold as long as we can. But basically it’s a complete holding pattern,” Ranson shared with BikePortland this morning. As just one example of the existential crisis his business faces, Ranson said he’s got a shipment worth $1 million waiting at a port in China that would cost him about $1.2 million just to clear customs. When I first reached out to Ranson, he lamented that the shipment would cost him $680,000 in tariffs. But that cost doubled overnight as the trade war has escalated. (Typical customs duty on a $1 million shipment would be around $20,000.)
“It’s preposterous. It’s impossible,” an exasperated Ranson shared.
Ranson said small and medium-sized business like his do not have the free cash flow needed to pay those kind of costs. “We’re all operating tight already. We’re managing every dollar. There are no businesses in the small to medium size range that will have the cash-flow to pay these tariffs. It’s just… it’s just impossible. I mean, literally, on our on our e-bike business, we’re now talking about 154% tariffs.” Ranson also works with a factory in Vietnam, where tariffs have jumped to 46%. This is all such a shock to the system because last year at this time there were zero import duties on e-bikes.
According to a well-sourced article published yesterday by Heatmap, the bicycle industry is one of the most import-dependent industries in the U.S. Bike industry experts are forecasting a very grim future for many companies like Showers Pass and Vvolt if things continue on this trajectory.
For now, Ranson has told shippers to hold his cargo. That means his plan is to sell existing inventory as long as he can, but he’s still got payroll and other fixed costs bearing down on him (including, somewhat ironically, payments on a federal SBA loan). Two months ago Ranson shifted employees to a four-day work week. He’s also frozen salaries and shelved plans to hire more staff. Despite difficult conditions, Vvolt and Showers Pass employees are just as committed to survival as Ranson is. “They’ve said, ‘We’re all in. Let’s figure this out,’ and that is so heartening. It makes me realize why I’m doing this in this first place.”
“What we’re not doing is giving up,” a resolute Ranson said this morning. “We’re looking under every rock, we’re scrambling, and we’re watching out for doors to open.”
But the clock is ticking without any new products coming in. It’s like a “ticking time bomb,” Ranson says.
Sales of Showers Pass products dipped significantly last week, due to what Ranson thinks is a general “paralysis” in the market. Even his largest customers like REI have reduced orders. Now it’s a matter of belt-tightening and playing the waiting game.
As for whether or not Trump’s tariff policy will encourage Ranson to bring Vvolt bicycle production to America, that’s a sore subject. Since Vvolt launched in 2021, Ranson said the vision was always to do assembly in the U.S.; but he’s received no government support to make that happen. And now with tariff costs, it’s impossible since none of the components on the bicycles are made in the U.S.
“If you want us to do this final assembly, which we believe is viable and can be done, you’ve got to give us a duty break on bringing in the components,” Ranson said.
With so much uncertainty, Ranson says it’s hard to even know how to react. For now, the plan is to sell through existing inventory and hope that provides enough cash flow to survive. There are no plans to raise prices on current inventory, and Ranson says if customers are feeling sympathetic, the best thing they can do is make a purchase. “Show us some love, because the only thing that’s going to keep us going is selling what we’ve got.”
“We’re going to keep the doors open until the government figures out what the hell they’re going to do. But if we start running out of product and we don’t have the cash for payroll and everything else. That’s when, you know, it’s lights out.”
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I do remember when I was a kid and tariffs were much more common that there were certain countries that specialized in re-exports. Back then shippers would move items from a high-US-tariff country like China to one that is tariff-free like Singapore (or Russia now) who would then stamp the items “Made in Singapore” and ship it to the USA. For years we would get cane sugar in the USA exported from Canada, a country that is incapable of growing sugar cane – it was clearly from Cuba, then exported to the Soviet Union (Russia), who then traded it for Canadian wheat. (Canada also produces beet sugar as does the USA, but the packages back then were clearly labeled cane sugar.) Each time it changed hands, the “Made in” label would also get changed. There was a lot of that back then, on clothing, tools, all kinds of stuff.
My favorite (certainly apocryphal) tariff story is about a factory in Usa, Japan, that gained advantage by stamping their products “Made in Usa”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usa,_%C5%8Cita
Driving bike related industries out of business probably fits with the administration’s plan to destroy everything that is good for people’s health and the environment.
Beloved children’s bike maker Islabikes departed the US market during the first Trump administration for the same reasons: risk and volatility. I hope showers pass makes it through this.
A good description how these tariffs will impact small businesses is here. It sounds like much the same story.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/opinion/frywall-tariffs.html
We lost Cleary Bikes last year as well. And Frog stopped selling in the U.S.
Why are cyclists always so political!!!! /s
Deep (probably too deep if I’m honest) in one of the threads on the conservative subreddits there was some discourse about how the tariffs would kneecap the bike industry and the gist of it was “good, we hate bikes and cyclists blocking traffic elites etc etc”. The thing is that cars are about to get a hell of a lot more expensive too.
But idk maybe they’ll start doing 15-year auto loans? I know someone who pays $1000 a month for their car loan. I suspect I’ll know a lot more someones like that sooner than later.
I, for one, look forward to the 30-year adjustable-rate auto mortgage backstopped by the Federal National Transportation Mortgage Association. Once the car bricks itself after 3 years of operation due to the failure to pay the Engine Unlock Subscriber Fee after the complimentary factory trial period, you’ll only owe 96% of the remaining mortgage at twice the vehicles remaining market value!
Think of the mobile derivatives market related to those still paying the high interest rates versus those who default, wandering the streets begging for a “hit” of car driving by those still solvent, having to face a grim future of walking, bicycling, and using public transit that may or may not exist.
Not quite 30 year auto mortgages yet, but in some places what you’re describing is already happening. Miliary bases are infamous for kids buying a car and then literally only being able to afford a single tank of gas (if that) to last the month so it just sits there in the parking lot.
https://www.military.com/off-duty/autos/used-muscle-cars-and-30-interest-military-love-affair.html
It can get your monthly payment down to $648 per month, which is only about a quarter of your monthly base pay. Great! What they don’t mention is that achieving that payment amount necessitates stretching your 30% interest loan period to 96 months (which is a thing people are doing now).
I don’t work in the bike industry but I started cancelling some of my purchase orders for processing of my employer’s stock of Chinese steel this morning. We’ve got around a dozen containers in transit take will cost much more than when we purchased their contents. It’s going to be pretty crazy until we can figure out what the new normal is.
Are there American sources for your steel? I imagine this will be a boon for domestic steel producers and the American steel workers.
It likely will be — they can increase their prices to just below the tariff value and still be cheaper while reaping larger profits than if they had to compete directly. Great if you own stocks in steel companies, which most readers with a 401k do (along with shares in Tesla).
So good for the (American) steel industry, but less good for people who use steel to build things, like car producers (good, we hate cars, unless it’s our own car, but bad if you care about climate change and realize we need to build lots of EVs in a hurry), the construction industry (bad, we’re YIMBY, but maybe good if we’re building highways, but bad if we just have to pay more to get the same highway built rather than building less), and, waaaaay on down the line, small bike shops (no equivocation, just bad).
But steel manufacturing is a big contributor to climate change, so maybe using less would be good, especially if that steel is coming from less efficient plants overseas?
But Trump is bad, and what he does is bad (except for Operation Warp Speed and the pandemic stimulus and greatly devaluing the mortgage tax credit, which were good), but at least his tariffs were bad, but then Biden didn’t undo most of them, so maybe they weren’t really bad after all?
This is complicated.
I have about a years supply of domestically processed steel stored in North Portland that I’ll use more heavily for the portion of our products that I support. Replacing our domestic sock this year is going to be very expensive. Even this domestic steel may have a large foreign sourced component.
Other aspects of our production are dependent on our vendors making spot buys on the open market which is extremely volatile.
Commodity pricing, exchange rates, and tariffs will heavily impact our foreign sales, especially for new system sales. I presume our existing customers will minimize their parts purchases.
We do lot track our imported raw materials and claim a rebate of tariffs for anything that is exported after manufacturing in Oregon.
Hi!
I’m chiming in as a Vvolt employee to offer some perspective from our day-to-day operations and shed some light on how enthusiastic and positive we remain despite the challenges posed by the economic uncertainty we’re all currently facing.
We’ve just had our strongest Q1 in the company’s history! We’re thrilled to share that much of that success is due to onboarding a national sales manager to develop a B2B program. Since we’re staffed by folks who’ve owned and managed bike shops in Portland, we’re committed to being an excellent brand for dealers to work with, and we already have partnerships with independent bike shops across the United States.
From an inventory perspective, we are well-situated to roll into this year’s buying season with a large stock of second-generation inventory that we’re stoked to ride ourselves! We’re an original design manufacturer, and our frame geometry and component specifications are honed in from decades of combined pedaling experience and, most importantly, trust in our partners! Our bikes use industry-standard part sizes and easy-to-service, long-lasting components, and we have a full stock of all the e-power equipment required to make our bikes sing. Speaking of our e-power supplier, Ananda, we couldn’t be happier with the performance and reliability. Ananda designs, tests, and produces 10+ million motors, controllers, and displays annually. They have factories across Southeast Asia and Europe and have been making motors since 2011. Bosch brought their first motor to market in 2011, too.
We’re a small team—just six of us, including Kyle. Sure, it’s not easy to compete with enormous brands with between 50 and 1000 staff, big marketing budgets, and the ability to leverage their suppliers for favorable terms. Yet, we remain committed to our mission: to transform urban mobility by introducing innovative electric micro-mobility vehicles that are accessible, enjoyable, and sustainable for everyone. The last thing we want to do is to be hyper-reactionary, and we will continue to be a nimble, fleet-wheeled brand that’s proud to call Portland home.
It’s true: the bike industry is facing some serious headwinds. That’s why we’re riding into them on our ebikes…the headwinds melt away, and we get there in style! Come down to our showroom and see for yourself.
Happy trails ;^)