LARGE PRICE INCREASE COMING - effective 8 September 2025!!!!

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Shooting Warehouse

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On 8 September 2025, Swarovski will be increasing the prices on ALL Binoculars, ALL Rangefinder Binoculars, ALL Spotting Scopes and Spotting Scope Eyepeices and certain accessories.

The price increase will range between 11 and 16% so quite a hefty increase. This is to cover the cost of US Tariffs of 15% on European Made products, that Swarovski can just no longer absorb.

ALL sales between NOW and midday 7 September will still be done at OLD prices, provided we have stock or Swarovski have the products in stock and they ship to us before 31 December 2025 - but your orders HAVE to be received before Midday (MST) on 7 September.

Like my buddy Doug at CameralandNY said in his newsletter today - BUY NOW OR CRY LATER!!! LOL

Cheers

Robbie
 
BlackPowderBurner said:
Should those tariffs not only affect US retail prices of Swarovski products? Or are there Canadian tariffs against EU good which I haven't heard of?
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Absorbing the overall cost of American tariffs through every international market. Unfortunately, American problems are our problems as well. Though you might be right. Im guessing their are certain amendments in CUSMA, that are triggerred in the event of tariffs placed on non CUSMA countries. An "if Im getting punished we are all getting punished sort of scenario". But all speculation since the contents of NAFTA 2.0 are not publicly available.
 
Unfortunately, tariffs are levied on ALL products entering the USA from Europe, and because the Canadian market for sport optics is SO tiny compared to the US market, most European Manufacturers have their North American headoffices based in the USA, and that's where their distribution is done to all US, Mexican and Canadian dealers.

So if a product with a manufactured landed cost of say US$1000 enters the USA, the 15% tariff is assessed by the US Govt, and a company like Swarovski or Leica or Zeiss or Pulsar or Kowa as examples, have a new "landed cost" of $1150. They then add all their operating costs and margin to the $1150, not the original $1000. And we as consumers (whether in the US or Canada), end up paying for that imposed tariff.

And the rest of the manufacturers will all just follow suit - they can absorb some of the costs for a while, but ultimately someone has to pay for it - and its us, the end users.

If the Canadian market was much much bigger, then you could have large distribution and warranty centres set up in Canada, and avoid the product from entering the USA first, but companies like Swaro, Leica, Zeiss, Kowa etc etc, just don't have the volumes in Canada to make a large, costly distribution centre in Canada worth its while. The costs would outstrip the potential "saving".

And if you're "done" with Swaro, then I have bad news as you'd then have to walk away from all the European brands, as they ALL are pretty much distributed to us Canadian dealers via their North American headoffices based in the USA.

It is what it is - until tariffs are completely abolished by the USA, this will get worse, not better. And I don't see Trump backing away from this anytime soon. He's enjoying flexing his muscles too much at this time - but that's just my humble opinion.

If any of you have questions or concerns, call me - I always try and explain as best I can - and I always spend time discussing options.

My phone is always on me, and always on - 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Thanks

Robbie
 
I wouldn't pay the price they demand for Swarovski in any case. They only have a five year warranty with an additional five year "good will" extension. Whatever that's worth. Their warranty wouldn't even match the twenty-five year Nikon warranty that used to offered in Canada. No thanks, for that kind of money, my scopes will always have an unconditional lifetime warranty.
 
Swarovski should ship directly to Canada from EU. We have a free trade agreement with them. On top of it - shipping from EU is equal or lower than US to Canada. There is absolutely no reason to buy from a US distributor.

We will also save the distributor “quote”. It’s time to change habits even you dealers should look into it directly with Swarovski. Tell them Canadian will stop buying their products if they do not move. And believe me ..they will be sensitive in doing it differently.. time to let go from the US hitch ball..
 
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TheGeneral said:
I wouldn't pay the price they demand for Swarovski in any case. They only have a five year warranty with an additional five year "good will" extension. Whatever that's worth. Their warranty wouldn't even match the twenty-five year Nikon warranty that used to offered in Canada. No thanks, for that kind of money, my scopes will always have an unconditional lifetime warranty.
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So you pay 1500 for the warranty and 1500 for the glass and end up with overpriced vortex stuff.
None of the high end brands have an unconditional lifetime warranty for a reason. If they did people would be driving trucks over them after the tiniest scratch trying to claim a new one. And a 4000dollar spotting scope would be 8000.
 
I have a hard time with this distribution #### these days. A small operation could accumulate orders in Canada and have a bulk shipment every month...3 months. Orders would be placed prepaid and would avoid the USA crap. Just an excuse for the lazy manufacturers. Get a bloody Canadian operation up and running with someone.
 
Agree with 4star60 and that used to be the case.

I think it was about 15 years ago when the situation was different. The Euros had Canadian distribution. These were smaller Canadian companies that had multiple lines. Some were set up to complete minor repairs and only the major warranty work went overseas which was good for the consumer.

The Euros eventually decided that they could make more $ by cutting out these small companies and leveraging their US divisions. This created the system which we have today where warranty is a pain and retail prices are higher.

To say that it is not profitable for the Euros to set up their own division here due to market size is correct. But they don't have to do that. They can easily establish distribution that bypasses the US. They choose not to at this point because it's convenient for them and turns a better $.

It's time to revise the model.
 
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I wish it were as easy as some here suggest.... Firstly, with Swarovski we don't have a "middleman distributor" so there's already a layer of cost saved by not having a Canadian distribution company adding a margin - Swarovski in Austria have a factory, workshops and distribution centre based in Rhode Island in the USA and all US, Canadian and Mexican dealers order directly from Swarovski based in the US. Warranty is handled there, marketing is done from there, sales and shipping too.

Having a company like Swarovski open their own offices, warehouse, marketing, sales shipping etc in Canada will be stupidly expensive because the size of our Canadian market is a blip on the radar compared to the USA. And when you duplicate everything, costs skyrocket.

And you cannot have 50 Canadian dealers order product directly from Swarovski in Austria, as they cannot ship individual items to dealers, as there are LOTS of export permits from the EU and legal things to get done - much easier to ship all of it to a central point in the USA, and from there to dealers.

I for one am glad we don't have a Canadian distributor for Swaro, as that would add 20%+ to the end cost of the unit, as they need to run admin, warehousing, shipping & logistics and warranty. There are enough examples of this in Canada, you guys just don't see how the actual initial cost gets inflated by all the extra costs being added.

And the other advantage with Swarovski, which is unlike a LOT of other brands, is that the Canadian price is the SAME as the US price, once the CA$ to US$ conversion is done. MANY brands in Canada are a LOT more expensive buying here than buying the same product in the USA. And we have the advantage that Canadian Dealers and US dealers pay the same exact price, and we sell at the same exact price after currency conversion. Go check some other high end brands, and you'll see how much more the Canadian price is compared to the US price.

Anyway, I'm not going to keep "defending" Swaro here - I wanted to just try and explain it's not as simple as some would make it.

Again, instead of guessing and making assumptions on here, call me and we could have a decent discussion on Swaro pricing etc etc.

Cheers

Robbie
 
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