A Price Check on Tariffs

CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.

CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell.

ROSIE: I’m Rosie Guerin, and you’re listening to The Wirecutter Show.

CHRISTINE: This episode is called: “A Price Check on Tariffs.”

ROSIE: Hey, it’s Rosie and Christine. Today, we’re bringing you a quick bonus episode about something many folks have been thinking about and discussing over the last few months, how tariffs are affecting prices of everyday products. If you’ve seen prices increase on anything in your life lately, you might naturally wonder, “Is it because of tariffs?” Christine, an example, our car is getting older. We’ve been seriously considering getting a new one before tariffs increased prices. My parents just bought an iPad they’d long been coveting for the same reason, I have friends with young kids who are looking to buy baby gear they know that they’ll need in the next few months, and then I know folks who are thinking ahead to how tariffs might affect their holiday shopping.

CHRISTINE: Yeah, I think it’s a natural thing to be thinking about right now. I mean, I’ve heard a lot of people talking about this in my life, as well. In case you need a refresher on what’s happening currently with tariffs — because it’s been a hot minute since the so-called Liberation Day back in April — the Trump administration has active tariffs right now, including a 10% universal tariff, 50% on steel and aluminum, 25% on cars and auto parts, and 30% on goods from China, and there are multiple exemptions to that. Our colleague, Wirecutter deputy editor Annemarie Conte, wanted to find out if prices really are going up because of tariffs and if you, as a consumer, can go out and see the prices going up right now. To get a signal, she and some others on our staff spent 60 days tracking prices on 40 of our recommendations.

ROSIE: The headline?

CHRISTINE: The headline is that prices really haven’t gone up so far.

ROSIE: Right. That, of course, doesn’t mean that they won’t change in the future, that other prices haven’t changed for other reasons on goods, or that tariffs aren’t consequential, because, of course, they are. But on this curated selection of Wirecutter picks, not much has changed so far.

CHRISTINE: In just a minute, Annemarie is going to join me in the studio to talk about her findings, what we can expect in the future, and how we might want to think about navigating purchases moving forward. We’ll be back after the break.

CHRISTINE: Annemarie, welcome to the show.

ANNEMARIE: Oh, hello. I’m so excited to be here.

CHRISTINE: It’s great to have you. You spent the last couple of months tracking the prices of 40 products that Wirecutter recommends. What type of products are these, and how exactly did you track those prices?

ANNEMARIE: The first thing we wanted to do was make sure that we had a representative sample. We wanted everyday products, things like olive oil, or retinol serum, dishwasher pods. And then we also wanted bigger purchases, so things like an air purifier, coffee maker, refrigerator. And we also wanted a mix of big companies and smaller companies, and ones that originated in different countries. We’re really trying to find a broad range of products that would be a representative sample of what people are purchasing and what potentially could be spiked by tariffs.

CHRISTINE: How did you go about tracking the prices?

ANNEMARIE: The Wirecutter secret weapon is our Deals team. We have seven journalists who literally think about prices on Wirecutter’s favorite products every day of the year, and they’re surfacing only the best deals on them, and so I employed them. I was like, “Please, can you help me?” They were like, “Yes, we got it.” We picked all of these products, and then every day, for 60 days, they tracked the prices on the products over three different retailers, often the manufacturer’s site, and checked to see what the pricing was like and how it was changing.

CHRISTINE: They’re going in daily on these 40 products and tracking the price day by day to keep a log of it for the last two months, or roughly 60 days, right?

ANNEMARIE:Yep, it was April 14 to June 12.

CHRISTINE: Okay, great. You spend these two months roughly tracking 40 products, but you find that there hasn’t been much of a change, right?

ANNEMARIE: Yeah. We checked in 30 days in, and we’re like, “Oh, nothing’s happened.”

CHRISTINE: What’s the story? There’s no story.

ANNEMARIE: We’re like, “Let’s do another 30 days and see what happens now,” and so 37 of the 40 products mostly remained the same. We did see some spiking, and there were price fluctuations throughout the time, which we also expected, because the Deals team sees this happen often throughout the year. There’s sales that happen, sometimes retailers increase or decrease a price for whatever reason, and so it was just a really interesting thing over the course of those 60 days.

CHRISTINE: What do you think is actually happening, based on this limited sample size? Have manufacturers just stockpiled all of the goods, and they’re sitting in warehouses somewhere, and they haven’t sold through them yet? Is there some other reason why the prices didn’t really rise noticeably on most of these products?

ANNEMARIE: I think that’s dead-on. I think the larger companies that could anticipate this and could afford to do it brought a lot of products in before the tariffs took effect, and then they’re warehousing them locally, so there’s not going to be import fees on things that already exist in the US. There’s also a little bit of a game of chicken happening: I think that retailers and manufacturers are loath to increase prices and to be the first one to increase prices.

CHRISTINE: Although you didn’t see the price rise on most of these products, you did see prices rise on a few. Can you give me an example and what you found out about that?

ANNEMARIE: The best example I can give you is from a mattress brand called Leesa. We were tracking the Leesa Sapira Hybrid Mattress. It’s one of our favorite mattresses. It’s one I own, I love it. It didn’t go up. For the price-tracking project, it remained the same. But our Deals team, because they’re price-tracking products, lots of Wirecutter picks, they noticed that the Leesa Legend Chill Hybrid Mattress went up. We went back to the company, and we said, “What’s going on here?” And they confirmed directly, it’s a direct result of tariffs. Because of the steel tariffs, they had to increase the price on the Leesa Legend Chill, but they’re taking a smaller profit margin on the rest of their mattresses because they really don’t want to have to raise prices. But with the one with more steel in it, they had to.

CHRISTINE: Okay, beyond these 40 products, you saw most of them didn’t rise, some of them did. But our Deals team is tracking, like you mentioned before, looking at products across our catalog. They did see prices rise on some products over the last two months, right?

ANNEMARIE: Yeah. Our tech team has particularly been sensitive to this, because they knew that so many of the products that they recommend were coming from China, and so they were doing their own price tracking, as well. We also see it on baby products, also a heavily Chinese-manufactured category, as well as things like an outdoor griddle — it’s made mostly of steel, that increased too.

CHRISTINE: Right, that makes sense. In the case of the products that did rise in price, like some of these baby goods, some of the tech goods, the things that have a lot of steel in them, are we sure that it’s because of tariffs? I think, at this point, anyone who sees prices rise is going to naturally have the question in their mind, “Oh, maybe it’s tariffs.” Do you think that people should assume that if they’re seeing prices rise, it’s tariffs right now?

ANNEMARIE: I think there are so many factors, and I think there’s also the amorphous “market forces” — that’s what Nintendo said caused the increase in their accessories. Inflation is a related but separate issue. There’s also the idea that the exchange rates, sometimes those, because a lot of these are global companies, and so they’re dealing with not only the US and the raise in tariffs, but other market forces that are existing outside of this, too. Unless a company is explicitly saying, “Yes, this is because of tariffs,” you don’t really know. I made sure that the examples that we cited, I only attribute it to tariffs if the company had confirmed it was due to tariffs.

CHRISTINE: So are there other instances where we are seeing prices rise right now for products, for everyday goods?

ANNEMARIE: I think the hardest hit have been these direct-to-consumer products. Small-value imports used to be tax-free because of the de minimis tax exemption.

CHRISTINE: Can you explain what that is?

ANNEMARIE: The de minimis tax exemption allows for shipments under $800 into the US without additional fees. The Trump administration ended that exemption for China and Hong Kong on May 2. So we are seeing on TikTok, we’re seeing all over the place, people ordering goods from places like Shein or Temu and getting a giant tariff bill, and they did not realize that it was coming. And that’s because the buyer is responsible for paying those import fees.

CHRISTINE: Right. We used to not tax that type of good, because I would imagine, like, if you’re ordering from Shein, part of the thing that people love is, you can get really cheap products, so you would probably be ordering something under $800 and not being taxed on it. But now, that fee is being passed on to the consumer.

ANNEMARIE: Yeah, and Wirecutter experienced this firsthand. So, we had a ukulele that we were going to make a pick. We ordered it, it was $56, and then we got an import bill for $102.43, making it … it could no longer be our budget pick, because it cost us $158.43.

CHRISTINE: Oh my gosh, that is wild. And that could really have an impact. This is companies, like you mentioned, Shein, Temu, but it’s also other direct-to-consumer brands, like, you just did a big piece on Quince. So some of these other brands that are selling direct-to-consumer and have had their processes where they’re making things in a different country and directly shipping, right?

ANNEMARIE: As I was reporting that story, I asked them about it, because their entire business model was predicated on this tax exemption, and that’s partially how they were keeping prices so low for the consumer. I noticed because I had all of my reporting, from when I was reporting in February and March, and we compared it, and their luggage used to just solely be made in China. And now, it’s also partially made in Indonesia. It seems like they’re moving their manufacturing facilities out of China in order to be able to still use the de minimis tax exemption, because the Trump administration only eliminated the exemption for China and Hong Kong.

CHRISTINE: Oh, that’s interesting. Okay, so there are workarounds for some of these companies. And this could also apply to, like, a small business that you’re buying from on a place like Etsy, right?

ANNEMARIE: Yeah, we’re seeing a lot of that. These small businesses, they don’t have the ability to move their manufacturing. They are already operating on such slim margins. It’s really tragic to see, because people’s livelihoods are being affected by this.

CHRISTINE: Right. Annemarie, if someone is shopping online, and they want to make sure that they avoid getting this huge bill in the mail because the de minimis exemption has been removed from products from China, is there a way you can easily see that? Is there language you should be looking for on a website? How do you determine this?

ANNEMARIE: Yeah. Our colleague Kimber Streams wrote an excellent story on this topic, and they had some great advice. First of all, check and see if the product has been manufactured in China or Hong Kong. You can search on the product page, and you can even ask customer service via email or chat, and ask where the product is being manufactured. You can’t 100% know for sure, so you might still get a surprise bill, but if you know that that product is being manufactured in China or Hong Kong, it’s almost guaranteed that you will get a customs bill later.

CHRISTINE: Right, especially if this is coming from abroad. If it’s still a product that’s sitting in somebody’s warehouse in the United States, it’s probably fine.

ANNEMARIE: Right, but the bill will come from DHL or FedEx, and it’s going to come directly to you.

CHRISTINE: Wow.

ANNEMARIE: Yeah, it’s wild.

CHRISTINE: Okay. We’ve talked a bit about where we are today. Annemarie, based on your reporting, what do you think people should expect to see with prices over the coming months?

ANNEMARIE: We really think that most prices will remain fairly stable for the time being, and that’s partially because people did import a lot of products before the tariffs took effect. Also, because these tariffs are shifting so much that we can’t fully predict the future, but we think prices will be okay through summer. Amazon Prime Day usually happens in mid-July. We think Prime Day should be fairly normal, but we’re not really sure what’s going to happen for Black Friday. Our experts really are concerned that prices will rise and the overstock will diminish by the fall, and that’s going to affect holiday shopping.

CHRISTINE: Right, okay, which could be a big concern for people who have already been experiencing inflation over the last few years. Annemarie, are there any other ways that manufacturers are kind of controlling the prices, keeping the prices from being too inflated for consumers at this point?

ANNEMARIE: Absolutely. I interviewed Ana Swanson, who covers trade and international economics for The Times for my story, and she was saying that she’s hearing from manufacturers that they’re going to potentially reduce the quality of their construction. A shirt, for example, can be made with lower-quality materials, or the design can be made simpler so that it takes less labor. As these companies are trying to figure out how to create more profit because these tariffs are eating into their profit, they’re potentially going to reduce quality across the board.

CHRISTINE: Okay. We did an episode on tariffs a few months ago with our tech editor, Caitlin McGarry, and at that point, our advice was, don’t rush out and panic-buy anything, but that if you do need to replace something, like, say, your phone, for instance, you might want to consider doing that. Do you agree with that? Based on your reporting, how do you think people should approach their purchases over the next couple months?

ANNEMARIE: We stand by that. I think Caitlin was dead-on, and I think it is really important to not panic-buy and to really only purchase if you truly want or need something. So take a breath, think about it. There are lots of ways that you can approach this. One thing that our headphones experts, for example … they’re not recommending newer models. They’re recommending the older models, because they don’t think that the price increases and the small upgrades that you would get from a newer model is worth it. Think about the model that you’re going to buy. Also, replace only if you really need to. You might be able to repair the item. You might be able to get along a little longer with older tech. And check to see if the company has announced future price increases. A lot of companies have been doing that, where they say, “We are going to increase prices on August 1.”

CHRISTINE: Is there a good place to look for that? Do you go directly to the retailer’s website to look for that information? How do you find that out?

ANNEMARIE: It’s been various places. Sometimes it’s an Instagram post, sometimes it’s a Reddit thread, sometimes it’s on the manufacturer’s website itself, so you do have to do a little poking around. But a lot of these manufacturers are forthcoming about this, which is helpful, because, again, they’re reticent. They don’t really want to increase prices unless they absolutely have to. Our Deals team are the heroes of this story. They’re the ones that are tracking these prices every day of the year, and they’re surfacing the Wirecutter-recommended products that are on sale and that meet their standards, so I always rely on them. If I see that they’ve posted a deal on something, I really trust that it’s the best price, especially during deal events.

CHRISTINE: Listeners can go directly to our Deals page to see what are the most current deals that we have featured.

ANNEMARIE: You can search. You can search by product, you can search by percent off. There’s a lot of ways to filter down that content too. And then you can also just consider buying used. With a lot of these products, there’s a robust secondhand market for, say, kids gear, and so that can really help extend the life of a product that already exists here and can be something that you get many more years out of.

CHRISTINE: That’s great. I love that. Also, for listeners who are interested in a particular product, many of our guides also include information about buying refurbished, because that can be a great way to buy some kinds of mechanical gear, like blenders, or computers, or things like that. Annemarie, this has been great. Thank you so much, and I’m looking forward to seeing you track more of this in the future.

ANNEMARIE: It’s been such a delight. Thank you.

ROSIE: If you want to find out more about Wirecutter’s coverage or read up on Wirecutter’s reporting on tariffs, visit our website, or, as ever, you can find a link in the show notes. That’s it for today. We’re back with a brand-new episode tomorrow. Thank you so much for listening. The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by me, Rosie Guerin, and produced by Abigail Keel. Editing by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Maddy Masiello and Nick Pitman. Today’s episode was mixed by Catherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Elisheba Ittoop, and Diane Wong. Wirecutter’s deputy publisher is Cliff Levy. Ben Frumin is Wirecutter’s editor-in-chief.

CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.

ROSIE: And I’m Rosie Guerin. Thank you for listening.

The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel.
Editing by Abigail Keel.
Engineering support from Maddy Masiello and Nick Pitman.
Episodes are mixed by Catherine Anderson.
Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Elisheba Ittoop, and Diane Wong.
Wirecutter’s deputy publisher and general manager is Cliff Levy.
Ben Frumin is Wirecutter’s editor-in-chief.
Hosted by Caira Blackwell and Christine Cyr Clisset.