Small businesses across the nation are feeling the squeeze from rising tariffs, including an online jewelry company that’s fighting for survival.
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Takea Green is the CEO of Fedore Accessories. She gets many of her materials from China, but President Donald Trump’s latest tariffs are taking a toll on her supply chain and profits.
“We’ve been seeing prices go up almost 30% not only that, my supplier has been kind of, you know, throwing warning signs saying any bulk orders over $800 is going to be taxed as well, even more, upwards of 30%,” Green said.
And it’s not just the jewelry. A major part of Green’s brand is custom jewelry boxes, which used to arrive in two weeks. Now, it takes months.
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With no other choice, she turned to generic packaging from Amazon which is causing a risk to her business.
“Part of the reasons why our customer loves us is because of our Beautiful packaging, and it really helps with the experience from ordering from us,” Green said. “So not having those boxes in for some time and giving the customer a generic Amazon box was not beneficial.”
On Thursday, Trump added a 145% tariff on all imports from China. An economic analyst said small businesses should be worried.
“They’re more vulnerable than larger businesses, which tend to have more dynamic supply chains, can more easily shift to other countries to source their goods if that’s possible, or even seek alternatives in another respect, but small businesses are much more constrained,” Justin Begley of Moody’s Analytics Economist said.
He added that small businesses are already pulling back on hiring and investment with consumers still reeling from high inflation and history is repeating itself.
Green said she is worried and cautious anytime there are unpredictable price increases.
"Often, the only way to kind of survive and stay in business is to pass that often in some other way, whether it being leaning your team out or passing the extra cost to the customer, which we have been trying to avoid at all at all costs," Green said.
As small businesses continue to feel the weight of these rising tariffs, it remains to be seen how long they can hold on before making hard choices that could impact their customers and employees.