US retailers haggle with suppliers after Trump tariffs
US retailers haggle with suppliers after Trump tariffs
Summary
U.S. retailers like Walmart and Target are negotiating with suppliers over price hikes caused by Trump’s tariffs on imports, including aluminum and Chinese goods.
Suppliers face increased costs but struggle to pass them on, fearing product removal from shelves. Walmart and Target resist raising prices, wary of losing customers.
Some manufacturers, like Nordic Ware and Bogg Bag, explore cost-cutting measures or alternative production sites.
Loss leading is common as suppliers absorb costs to stay competitive, while others negotiate shared burdens to minimize price increases.
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I would love to be able to buy directly from suppliers instead of being forced to shop at Walmart or Target (or Amazon).
Chinesium items you normally run to Amazon for, the same exact items, the same pictures even, at 2/3 to 1/2 the price: Temu. I’m not buying clothes there, but the price difference is real.
Those of us who are older remember eBay before Amazon. Phone chargers, cases, adapters, that’s where you went. Then all that product slid over to Amazon as it rose to prominence beyond bookselling. Then Walmart wanted a piece and duplication on two markets happened. Now it’s more directly available on Temu. Ali before that, just not as heavily advertised. Bonus, Bezos doesn’t get paid. Same crap, different vibe.
The Chinesium is still cheap, even with tariffs, you just have to bypass more middlemen to get there. High odds you won’t have easy returns like Amazon and Walmart, that’s the trade off.
A lot of the time you can, but it's a challenge to go and find them, and a lot of the time they simply don't, or can't, sell to the public. Hopefully the latest backlash against big tech will cause some adjustments in the market. Maybe someone can come up with a decentralized way to offer direct sales services for manufacturers.
Right, but that's the whole catch-22; being able to go somewhere to get what you need without learning a new site, assessing rules, product, credibility, learning their interface, etc. is part of the value Amazon provides(and I despise Bezos and Amazon). You wouldn't "go directly to the supplier" for every purchase given time and mechanics above, so at some point you go to a bigger name that will do some of the legwork of aggregating suppliers into a useful, repeatable interface. By the time and "independent, new, direct purchased place gets big enough to be useful to many people you will then say it's "just open of the big retailers/etailers”.
In 2025 we're probably well into a cohort that never had to learn how to search the internet in earnest and probably well on our way back to people who may visit 1-3 retailers before purchasing online. We're basically back to "you've got mail" days when most people didn't know the difference between AOL's platform and an Internet browser and just took what was presented to them without any effort on their part. Human nature to a degree with path of least resistance I guess.