Tariffs are here and costly for small business.
I was recently at a dinner hosted by one of my close friends. As is normal, we talk about what everyone has been up to and what is going on in the world. But this one had a particular difference to it as the conversation headed towards tariffs.
Unless you’ve been under a rock in 2025, you know that tariffs have been all over the news. Not a day goes by where there isn’t something happening around these. A lot of us are still trying to figure out what they even really are!
But, this is not “Grimm News” about what they are or what it means for consumers. No, this is a real life example of the direct impact they can have on small businesses here in the US. My friend that hosted the dinner is also a business owner of an apparel brand. Just about every apparel brand experiences some sort importing and exporting in order to operate. Raw materials, manufacturing, shipping and more. We were informed of his first massive tariff bill, a few thousand extra dollars of expense just to import his product.
His initial estimate is that he well probably have a $50,000 tariff expense this year and it raises some very important business questions.
Do you pass that on to the consumer and potentially hurt your loyal customer base?
Do you manufacture here in the US and then have to charge 2-3x for the product?
How does that expense reduce the ability to hire and expand the workforce?
Does that limit development and progress, marketing, growing?
What choices do you have to make about your inventory quantities ahead of large sales seasons?
All in all, that is $50,000 less available for the business last week than this week and that hurts.
These policies are real and their impact on us are starting to show up in different ways.
Here is a helpful Forbes article about this very topic.
As always, if you come across a financially related article you’d like to send my way please do!
Best place to send them is to me.
More next time!
Jonathan