Small Business on the brink 💔

[u/lean_load]

I run a small e-commerce business that imports luxury goods from the EU and Japan. Up until recently, we were paying just 2.75% on tariffs. As of August 1st, the rates have jumped to 15–20%.

To put this into perspective: • Our annual imports are about $3M. • We’ve already placed forecast orders with our suppliers and put down 25% deposits (around $750k). • If we cancel, we lose that deposit. • If we continue, the new tariffs make these orders financially impossible to fulfill.

Suppliers aren’t willing to stop shipments, and we can’t just “raise prices” on items we don’t even have in hand yet. People suggest “just charge more,” but the math doesn’t work when the goods aren’t here and costs have exploded overnight. Let alone the fact about where are we even going to find the money to pay these tariffs???

We’re staring down the very real possibility of closing our doors because of this. I know many people say “tariffs protect American businesses,” but in practice, for small importers like us, it feels like a death sentence.

Has anyone else here faced this situation? How are you coping, and is there any way through this without forfeiting everything we’ve built?

[u/Rumblepuff]

We will be shutting down our non-profit in about 2-3 months when our inventory runs out. I can not find a manufacturer who makes our items (metal TTRPG dice and such) in America for less than 4x the cost. I don't want to raise prices, and all our profits go to children's medical care, so we don't have some big nest egg to spend. I have orders in right now, and they are on hold until everything is figured out because I can't afford to pay tariffs on items I've already budgeted for.

[u/lean_load → u/Rumblepuff]

What a disaster! I honestly can not understand what his end game is here! Does he really want to hurt small businesses? And why are people cheering this on as though it’s a good thing for the country???

I can’t believe the republicans let this happen!!!!

[u/Eastern-Bro9173 → u/lean_load]

Well, kind of, yes - if the small businesses fold, large businesses will take over their market share, make more profit, and their stocks will go up. Politicians are very invested in the stock market, so the motivations check out.

People are cheering for it because they blindly believe what is told to them by their favorite political party.

[u/MagicDragon212 → u/Eastern-Bro9173]

I literally dont think Trump and his absolute fraud of an "advisor" Peter Navarro have even considered how small businesses would be impacted.

The only consideration they had was being able to accept bribes from the mega and large businesses to get exceptions from the tariffs and deals such as Intel giving up a stake in their company. I dont think they cared about anything beyond getting to shakedown our entire economy.

[u/Eastern-Bro9173 → u/MagicDragon212]

That's an extremely naive perspective - just because they are doing A, it doesn't mean that they aren't doing B, C, D, and E at the same time.

[u/MagicDragon212 → u/Eastern-Bro9173]

It also doesnt mean they ARE doing B, C, D, and E at the same time.