{"id":403291,"date":"2025-11-25T09:36:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T09:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/403291\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T09:36:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T09:36:17","slug":"tariffs-strain-small-businesses-as-holiday-shoppers-see-higher-prices-lower-inventory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/403291\/","title":{"rendered":"Tariffs strain small businesses as holiday shoppers see higher prices, lower inventory"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDMONDS, Wash. \u2014 Holiday shopping is underway for many families, but local businesses are facing tariffs this year, leading some to see lower inventory and higher prices. <\/p>\n

Teri’s Toybox has been in business in downtown Edmonds for more than 40 years, but this holiday season looks much different. Nikki Matsen, the store’s owner, told KOMO News she’s seen cost increases anywhere from 30% to 50% this year.<\/p>\n

“Everything has just skyrocketed, whether they call it a tariff or put it in the pricing,” she continued, “we’re paying more for it.”<\/p>\n

RELATED: Will you pay more or less to celebrate this holiday season?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

A rollout of tariffs on imported goods was an early agenda item for the Trump administration in 2025<\/a>. Matsen said she and other small business owners tried to prepare ahead of time. <\/p>\n

“We tried to beat the tariffs and buy as many toys as we could,” Matsen explained. <\/p>\n

Most notably for the toy industry, President Donald Trump hit China with a 145% tariff in April. Teri’s Toybox buys most of its product from China, Matsen said. <\/p>\n

“That was terrifying,” she added. “There just aren’t toys made anywhere else really anymore.”<\/p>\n

While that number has since lowered, Matsen said her store’s inventory has dropped by about 20%. She told KOMO News she’s had to gradually raise some of her prices and stop buying product from certain companies overseas. <\/p>\n

RELATED: The economy is growing without adding many jobs, creating challenge for the Fed<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

“One company did stop producing, so we can’t get anything from them this year, and that is a big seller of ours,” Matsen said. <\/p>\n

The busy holiday season typically brings in a large chunk of Teri’s Toybox’s annual sales, but with Matsen and her team having to absorb a lot of extra costs this year, she’s unsure what her profit will look like. <\/p>\n

“I don’t know when it’s going to stop, if it’s going to go up again,” Matsen explained. “Everyone’s scared in the toy industry because, unfortunately, a lot of it is made overseas.”<\/p>\n

Overall, Matsen shared that she feels lucky to have regular customers who help her keep her doors open. <\/p>\n

“We have great, core people who are loyal to us shopping, and that’s wonderful and has saved us so far,” she said. <\/p>\n

Matsen’s best advice to families this year is “if you see it, buy it,” because many family-owned stores like hers won’t be able to restock popular items before the holidays. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONDS, Wash. \u2014 Holiday shopping is underway for many families, but local businesses are facing tariffs this year,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":403292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[64,79,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-403291","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115609664577329789","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}