Vivian Hoffman worked in retail for half a century, including 25 years as a 21 -year -old buyer and the last eight in a row fancyA series that sells women with reasonable prices on the outskirts of New York City. I adapted to the recession, and the disturbances after the attacks on September 11, 2001, Covid-19s.
However, the past few weeks have provided a set of challenges that confuse even for old warriors in the industry.
The largest part of the clothes and accessories that Ms. Hoffmann is produced in China, where import duties are facing 145 percent at the present time, and Vietnam, which may face a high tariff within a few months. While its sellers pay the definitions, one of them recently raised the prices of shoes by 20 percent, while others say they will increase close to higher costs. The seller who sells Chinese jeans cannot even know the prices that must be placed on the elements in the fall line.
I have left the disturbances above the reluctant demand for the consumer, Mrs. Hoffmann in Will.
“I was going back and forth: Do I buy less because I think the work will be hurt or try to buy additional goods because I am afraid of increasing prices?” She said. “I was going back and forth between two parties.”
With five stores and a small online presence, Whim is just a spot in the world of vast retail. But the thorny decisions faced by Mrs. Hoffman is a mini image of the injury faced by retailers throughout the United States. All companies look forward to clarity, however, the widespread definitions imposed, threatening and retreating by the White House make it difficult for companies of all sizes and forms planning for the future.
Adult retailers such as Walmart and Target and Giant Commerce Commerce, such as Amazon, have the power to claim concessions from their suppliers abroad. Andy Jaci, CEO of Amazon, said at Interview on CNBC On Thursday, the company accelerated to bring some stocks to the United States before the definitions and will try to “re -negotiate the conditions” with some suppliers.
Most retailers, though, are often small and independent companies at the mercy of their sellers. In many industries, such as clothes, most of what they sell in China and other countries are produced Low options They can bear costs in the United States.
Alyssa Chambers, who owns Essence IO, which makes scented candles, said the price of 12 Chinese glass jars jumped to $ 25, from $ 21 of last year. She said that the similar tractor produced in America costs at least twice as much as it costs twice that of no less than that. Even before the events of this week, the costs of wax and the lens, which it also requested from China, rose.
Ms. Chambers, who works alone and sells Its commodities online And in population stores, shows and events. “I just take the time to sacrifice and not respond emotionally.”
The parked nature of the expulsion of customs tariffs has also resulted in wandering in the stock market and has consumed confidence because people have stumbled. Retail sales have grown 0.2 per cent in February compared to January, although spending on clothes and accessories, electronics, restaurants and bars fell.
Consumer morale index at the University of Michigan 11 percent decreased In March, the third monthly decrease in a row, to its lowest level since November 2022. Anxiety about high prices may persuade consumers to buy more used clothes and others to survey Consumers about the products that have returned. Nearly 85 percent said they are concerned that the customs tariff will raise prices.
“The comfort about the definitions and its impact on consumer morale on retail sales may end is worse than the effect of inflation,” said David David Silverman, the first manager of the companies group, said. It reduced its classification of the retail and retail products sector in the United States To the “deterioration” of “neutral”.
The recent increases in definitions in China will likely perform Anna Wong, economist In Bloomberg.
Last year, three quarters of all games and sports commodities, 40 percent of all shoes and 25 percent of all textiles and clothes imported to the United States from China, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economy.
For several months, many companies have tried to control their business plans in anticipation of tariffs, with varying success. The shoe maker, Steve Madden, said in February that he had reduced the percentage of goods imported from China to 58 from 71 since November. The company wants to reduce this number to the low 1940s in the coming months.
“We will selectively raise prices,” Edward Rosenfield, CEO of the company, told investors in February. “Where we think we can get more goods, we will do so in the fall.”
At a conference for investors this weekWalmart, the largest retail store in the country, stood, along with her expectations from 3 to 4 percent in sales in the first quarter. But because a third of what Walmart sells comes from all over the world, especially China and Mexico, has made customs tariffs difficult to predict the growth of operational income.
“We are in one week in this new tariff environment, and we are still working on what this means for us,” said John David Rene, Senior Financial Director at Wall Mart. “For the current quarter, the uncertainty and the low morale of the consumer led to more sales fluctuations from a week to a week, and frankly, day after day.”
In the days after the announcement of the customs tariff for the first time, Amazon canceled requests for some elements, including skiing panels, which I bought from suppliers through a special program, according to one of the sellers whose orders were canceled, consultants of suppliers and LinkedIn publications were canceled from others saying that their orders were canceled.
Under the special program, the sellers sold their products to Amazon at a lower price, but Amazon prompted the transfer of products to the United States and was on a hook to cover the costs of customs tariffs directly. When the risk of customs tariffs changed, Amazon has effectively paid more costs to its suppliers by canceling requests. Now, suppliers must import products themselves, pay tariffs, then try to re -negotiate the top of the sentence higher with Amazon.
Amazon refused to comment on the canceled requests, which Bloomberg reported earlier.
Hobby Lobby, the retail seller, told the sellers that due to the escalating trade war and “unpredictable and unpredictable” rapid scene, “he was delaying shipments from China, although the requests were not canceled, according to the correspondence dated Thursday and was seen in the New York Times. She said she would review her plans weekly. Lobby amateurs had no immediate comment.
Smaller retailers, regardless of their willingness, have no muscle or Amazon elasticity. Kim Fakrilla, founder of Bogg, who sells handbags and accessories, is expected to tariffs in China, where all its suppliers. So in January, she visited Sri Lanka and Vietnam to find suppliers to help isolate her company.
She and her team received samples from the manufacturer in Vietnam and were ready to apply. But after the White House imposed a tariff of more than 40 percent on imports from Vietnam, Mrs. Fakarilla was late so that she could measure the effect.
“We felt that we were in a good place,” she said before the White House announced a tariff for dozens of countries last week. “It was, my God, we did all this work and spent all this money going there for nothing.”
The definitions of Vietnam have been stopped for three months, but the confusion is still. Mrs. Vakarilla said that her company recently collected $ 5 on some dollars on some products, but she retracted the increase in respect for her customers. Currently, we are used to see what happens before taking such a step again.
She said: “Every day, you can ask me the same question, which is a different answer, which is madness and uncertainty.”
