I am closing my business because of them. I own a local game shop in a small town. Publishers are raising my costs but not msrp, wanting me to absorb the tariffs. Ultra Pro has already increased prices between 12 and 32% depending on the item. Catalyst’s new 40K knock off has decreased margins for me too. Other game companies have closed outright, or suspended dealing with the us, despite being US companies.
I have some games that were made in the us, the quality is abysmal and the cost is outrageous. Ultra Pro moved a lot of manufacturing to the states in 2021 because shipping from China was far too high. As soon as that normalized again they moved manufacturing back to China.
In addition to my raising costs, the threat of the tariffs has business down overall. People’s costs of everything else is up, and the fear of further cost increases on necessities has them spending less on hobbies and entertainment.
I also volunteer at a food bank and we are seeing the volume of food we have to give out, and the quality plummet. Mostly now we are getting almost exclusively products that is close to the end of its shelf life and can no longer be sold. We used to get lots of food with long shelf life. All of the government food, nuts, dried fruit, cheese, grains and legumes has totally vanished. I have been volunteering for over two years, and until March of this year we have always had a bag of nuts, a bag of dried fruit, at least one bag of rice, and at least one bag of dried legumes, every single week for two years. We have none of that any longer.
Im starting to see some costs raise on materials for my business. Most of the crunch seems to be at grocery stores I feel like. Id be postponing or looking for alternatives for any tech if I had the money to buy it lol
My job is harder and everyone is a lot more stressed. Major clients are slowing down so we’re picking up small, shitty projects with insane deadlines just to keep the money flowing.
Well, the only country I personally import goods from is Japan and they’ve responded by ending shipments to the US. So that sucks.
I’ve been boycotting capitalism for a while now so not too much.
I mainly buy food. I haven’t noticed a big increase but I also try to buy local foods whenever possible.
Olimex stopped shipping to the US which sucks:
Starting August 29th, new regulations have come into effect. Both DHL and UPS currently have no working solution, so on their advice, we are temporarily suspending all shipments to the USA effective immediately.
The issue is that we are now required to collect all taxes and tariffs on U.S. shipments in advance. However, there is no functioning calculator for this, which has created chaos. Parcels are being held in customs for weeks due to unreasonable requirements. For example, importers must declare the exact amount of steel, copper, and aluminum in products, with a 100% tariff applied to these materials. This makes little sense—PCBs, for instance, contain copper traces, but the quantity is nearly impossible to estimate.
U.S. customs is demanding a Certificate of Analysis (which could cost thousands of dollars and to determine what exact amount of Aluminum, Copper and Steel are in the product), otherwise they assume the entire PCB consists of copper, aluminum, and steel, and charge a 100% tariff on the whole product. This is a prime example of unnecessary complexity in international trade.
We sincerely apologize to all U.S. customers wishing to order directly. For now, please purchase our products through Mouser or Digi-Key.
All pending orders will be reviewed one by one and discussed with our customers, to decide what to do in each case.
I interact with the economy minimally. sure, groceries suck. but for everything else I’m off the grid
Not much but still early days.
Groceries for me personally has gone up, not everything but I’m seeing small price bumps slowly hit different products. Right now it looks like the cost of coffee has gone up at most of the supermarkets I go to. And other random foods I buy like noodles/sauces from asia are slightly more expensive.
At work the tariffs are even more noticeable. We import food products from Europe and Asia to wholesale to U.S. customers that eventually sell retail to their customers. Since pretty much all the import costs have gone up we’ve increased the wholesale prices our customers pay across the board. That does mean the customers ordering this stuff to sell retail on their end will have to increase the final retail costs of the product, or absorb some of the cost if they can.
I’ve noticed the costs mostly clearly when buying small items online that should cost less than $10, and certainly less than $15. Suddenly $30 is the floor.
All I routinely buy is food, and I haven’t noticed an increase yet since January, which surprises me. But, I expect I will soon.
Electricity has gone up, but I don’t think that is due to tariffs. I don’t know.
In February I got a job, but I had not been officially hired yet. Did a drug screening and background check.
3 months later, at the end of May when the tariffs were “slashed” I was finally called in.
3 months of waiting, of not getting income, sucked. Im just 1 person, but the tariffs effect people on a grand scale.
