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Founders and CEOs typically use social media to etch a human face onto their brand, forge a personal connection with potential customers, and put some pizzazz into product launches. With the thundercloud of steep global tariffs looming overhead, though, many business owners have lately turned to TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit to explain the economic havoc those tariffs are poised to wreak on their brandsand in some cases, to search for a path forward. @antiplasticlady Replying to @Melanie not sure how any retailer is going to stay in business after this #trumptariffs #smallbusinessowner original sound – Beatrice the Anti-Plastic Lady I wanted to make a video about tariffs and how it impacted my small business because I have continued to see incomplete information being shared onlineand in legacy print media, too, says Beatrice Barba, the Bay area-based owner of Tabor Place, which sells nontoxic cups and lunch boxes for kids. On her personal TikTok account, where shes built a healthy following under the handle Antiplastic Lady, Barba addressed customers and fans directly last Friday about the new financial reality. Without mincing words, she detailed how Trumps then-54%, now-104% tariff on Chinese imports stands to completely wipe out her profit margin. As the owner mentions in her TikTok, Tabor Place manufactures sippy cups and the like out of borosilicate glass, the same durable, nontoxic material used in Pyrex. She sources it from China, not for the regions low pricing or out of convenience, but because she simply cannot find borosilicate glass in the U.S., having searched some 80 domestic manufacturers since starting the business in 2018, with none of them panning out. Barbas video quickly amassed over 600k views on TikTok, where she says the response has been mostly positivewith thousands of commenters surprised to learn the harsh math of the tariffs impact from a nontheoretical example. Elsewhere on the platform, Heather Pavone took a different tact. @haley_pavone I wish this was even remotely exaggerated. Small business owners are so. Freakin. Tired. #entreprenuer #smallbusiness #tradewar #founder #businessnews #usa #government original sound – Haley Pavone Last Friday, the Pashion Footwear founder posted a video playfully using the familiar visual vocabulary of a certain flavor of viral TikTok: the single-performer two-hander. In it, she poses as a supplicant trying to coax some relief from an authority figurealso played by the CEOseated on the other side of an office desk. Pavone comes across like a worker asking her boss for a raise, only the worker is revealed in a caption to represent all small business owners, while the boss represents the U.S. government. Without anything resembling a Trump impression, Pavone as government avatar smugly steers her adversary toward domestic manufacturing, rather than imports. Each time, Pavone, speaking for her fellow owners, rebuts the suggestion. (We actually dont have scaled footwear manufacturingor, really, apparel manufacturing of any kindin the U.S., she clarifies at one point.) Throughout the video, she makes clear how difficult it would be to ever rebuild sufficient manufacturing infrastructure in the U.S. starting from scratch, not to mention the impossibility of somehow doing so fast enough to survive sky-high import costs from the tariffs. At no point does the character representing the U.S. government seem moved in the slightest. The five-and-a-half minute TikTok quickly earned a whopping 3.5 million views. Pavone isnt the only owner of an apparel company to make such a video this week, though. Over on Instagram, the CEO of denim company 3sixteen posted a comprehensive Reel last Friday about how the tariffs will affect small fashion brands.
Category:
E-Commerce
Jesse Schiller and Rachel Evans are likely the only business owners on Australia’s Norfolk Island to be directly affected by the Trump administration’s tariffs, as the South Pacific outpost they call home exports nothing to the United States. The Canadian couple, both aged 41, own a business that makes plastic-free hair accessories under the brand Kooshoo. Vancouver-born Schiller said he and his Norfolk Island-born wife are likely the only business owners on the island that will pay elevated tariffsand they will pay at the rates imposed on Japan and India, where the goods are manufactured. Around 80% of Kooshoos business is with the United States. Kooshoo means feeling good in the English-Tahitian creole known as Norfk or Norfuk thats spoken among this remote population of 2,000 people 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) northeast of Sydney. Were probably the most affected business on Norfolk Island, Schiller said. Norfolk Island was a shock inclusion in the Trump administrations list of global tariffs announced last week that was intended to redress U.S. trade deficits with the world. While Australia and its external territories were assigned the global minimum 10% tariff, including the uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands in the Antarctic region, Norfolk Island was singled out for a 29% tariff. I think Norfolk became a parable of sorts for the lack of nuance with which these tariffs went out in the world, Schiller said. Schiller and Evans, a Canadian-Australian dual national, have the consolation of being dealt slightly lower tariffs: Japan has been assigned a 24% tariff and India 26%. Why Norfolk Island came in for such severe and apparently futile tariff treatment has been a popular topic of conversation among locals. Its been a question of great intrigue locally, Schiller said. An early theoryand it seems to be proving rightis that there are other notable Norfolks in the world. Norfolk, of course, in the U.K., Norfolk in Virginia in the U.S., and it seems as though some improperly labeled customs paperwork may have contributed to the . . . error, Schiller said. That couldve been very easily fact-checked, he added. His wife, Evans, has an impressive Norfolk Islander lineage. She is a 9th generation descendant of a crewman of the British naval ship HMS Bounty who mutinied in 1789, although her mother is Canadian. The mutineers, whose exploits have been dramatized in Hollywood movies, established a settlement on Pitcairn Islands and their descendants later settled the former British penal colony of Norfolk Island. She said the sustainable lifestyle she had learned from growing up on such an isolated island around 8 kilometers (5 miles) long and 5 kilometers (3 miles) wide had been part of the brand since they started their business in Vancouver 15 years ago. She was confident their business would survive the latest trade barriers. Definitely for the short-term well figure out a way to bridge this, Evans said. Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
U.S. consumer spending for Easter is expected to rise about 5% this year as Americans snap up candy and gifts to celebrate despite concerns around high inflation and economic uncertainty, a National Retail Federation report showed on Tuesday. Shoppers are expected to spend around $23.6 billion this year, compared with $22.4 billion estimated last year, the trade body’s survey showed, with discount stores once again poised to be the top destination for Easter shopping. Prices of eggs, traditionally used for Easter decor and games, have nearly doubled from last year as avian influenza wiped out millions of hens and led to a shortage of eggs in February. Retail bellwether Walmart left out eggs from its yearly Easter promotional meal kit, shared late last month at a lower price than 2024. President Donald Trump‘s sweeping tariffs on several trade partners have also raised fears of a recession, casting a pall on consumer sentiment in the United States. However, retailers such as Target and dollar stores that enjoyed an upbeat December quarter thanks to robust Christmas spending have said consumers are expected to shop for Easter with similar interest. “As we witnessed throughout the pandemic, holidays such as Easter are especially meaningful for Americans during times of uncertainty. And we are continuing to see that trend as consumers prioritize their Easter celebrations this year,” said Katherine Cullen, NRF vice president of industry and consumer insights. “From other holidays NRF tracks, we know that consumers who are feeling constrained by higher prices or the economy may cut back in other areas, look to sales or find less costly substitutes in order to preserve their traditional celebrations.” NRF’s forecast said a majority of consumers were expected to shop inspired by tradition to buy Easter-related items, while 36% were also expected to be influenced by sales and promotions. Candy, food and gifts are likely to be at the top of shopping lists this Easter, with consumers seen spending a total of $7.4 billion on food, $3.8 billion on gifts, and $3.3 billion on candy, the report said. Juveria Tabassum, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
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