Digikey discussing how tariffs are hitting their operations
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I haven’t ordered from Digi this month, but I placed an order on Mouser yesterday and for the first time saw the tariff listed as a separate line item. All companies should do this to make people aware of the tax they’re paying. It has little to do with trade imbalance, it’s just a tax (imo).
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An interesting thing about the Tariff as a separate line item is that if you can look up the rate applied, then you can calculate the distributor markup:
Tariffs should be applied at the distributors import invoice cost. Obviously Mouser has margin on top of that landed cost and that is not subject to tariffs.
You can solve for invoice cost
I = Invoice cost (unknown)
R = Tariff rate. (should be known?)
T = Tariff cost (given at purchase)
M = Purchase Price (given at purchase)
D = Distributor Markup (unknown)
T = I * R
M = I + D
I = 5.96/.35 = 17.029 → $2.432 per part
D = $ 2.85 - $2.432 → $0.407 per part
Mouser Margin is 14.33%
What if their invoice cost is actually less? Then they have more markup on the component and get a 35% premium on top for the added tariff.
Just interesting to think about.
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Just got whacked with $342 duty on $800 worth of boards from PCB Way.
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I think you were lucky — one of my clients had to pay around $300 for a $200 shipment, also from PCBWay, when the tariffs first started kicking in. I usually place orders from Mexico but have them delivered to Laredo, Texas, and from there a (somewhat sketchy) service brings them down to Monterrey. But with all this going on, I’ll probably have to start ordering directly to Mexico. The issue is that the import process here tends to be unpredictable since we don’t have an importer’s license — and maintaining one is too costly given our low volume, which is mainly for prototyping.
Quick question: with the recent tariff hikes, is it still worth sourcing PCBs from China? I haven’t bought boards from the U.S. in years. In Mexico, most PCB manufacturers have disappeared, and the few that remain only do 2-layer boards — and the quality isn’t great
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I don’t think there are many manufacturers actually making boards in the US, and the ones that are cater to military and aerospace. At least DHL made it easy to pay the fees, just a few clicks and a credit card.
Many years ago, when I first started needing 4-layer boards, I began using this supplier: https://www.sunstone.com/. The last time I requested a quote — about a year ago, just to check prices — the cost was about three times higher than in China. I’ll run the experiment again soon.
Anyway, I hope this tariff situation stabilizes soon, because here in Mexico the uncertainty has been hitting us hard in many areas of the economy
Yes, I’ve used Sunstone and their sister assembly house Screaming Circuits.
Just ran my last 8-layer board through their online quoter - their price is 3x PCB Way’s including tariff.
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I started using Digikey in the early 1980’s for orders that made it more cost-effective than Jameco. Nowadays I use Digikey and Mouser equally, though for basic components I sometimes take chances with Amazon and the usual Chinese distributors for non-critical parts.