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Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

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Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#152
Would this not reveal every importer's gross margin to its competitors? The tariff is only on the importer's "landed cost". If the tariff is itemized(and not just a made up number by the seller), then you can easily work out their gross profit margin and the price they are paying their OEM.

It seems like no seller would want this.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#153
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Company A imports steel and pays a tariff, uses the steels to make screws in the US. Company B imports lumber and pays a tariff, manufacturers it into furniture rails in the US. Company C buys furniture rails from Company B and screws from Company A and assembles them into an end table. Company D buys the end tables wholesale from Company C and distributes them on Amazon. How does Amazon display the tariffs paid by C…

A and B passed along the tariff costs to C, which passed those costs to D. D now costs more, assuming they pass the delta cost to the consumer. The only delta a customer cares about is the past/current cost of D, which is what amazon would presumably display. Isn't this the horn everyone keeps trumpeting? It doesn't seem complicated.

It is complicated because tariffs are not just "passed off". In the real world, tariffs are almost always marginal, meaning each company is willing to absorb some of the cost, ie lower profits. In parent's example, the US has a large steel industry and rail companies relying on imports cannot arbitrarily raise prices because they need to stay competitive with companies using domestic. Markets are also dynamic and simply comparing pre/post price may work temporarily, but for a persistent tariff that metric will become increasingly meaningless as price inevitably fluctuates due to other factors.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#154
post #95

I hope amazon.com will call them "Trump tariffs" to make sure who is to blame.

You can blame Trump but in the US, we’re all to blame here. Blaming somebody who’s not me just make it easier to feel good about myself and like I’m less of the problem. I mean call them the Democrats tariffs. 2024 was a gift-wrapped election victory and the Democrats (shockingly) bungled it in staggeringly impressive fashion.

"You shouldn't have made me abuse you."

C'mon. This isn't even an attempt at "both sides" shit.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect businesses to bump prices. Bump em because of tariffs, bump em some more to pad the margins because what is an extra 5%, bump em even when they're not affected by tariffs because everyone else is doing so, and delay un-bumping them once tariffs fall again.

Prices are always set by supply and demand. The price will rise until it gets high enough that the product of sales * price falls. It has always been that way. Businesses haven’t been selling goods and services out of the goodness of their hearts at an arbitrary price. It’s always supply and demand. Tariffs are expected to reduced demand because they increase prices. This is why the stock market is down and nearly ev…

It's a lot more complicated than that. Prices are sticky. When you raise prices, consumers notice and your sales go down. Therefore price changes are generally larger and less frequent than would be indicated by a pure supply & demand situation. And that's just one complication among many.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#156
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s kind of petty to list tariffs as a separate line item and not all the other costs that contribute to the final price. Why just the tariffs, unless Amazon is trying to make a political point? It strikes me as just as petty as when restaurants started listing “Living Wage Fee” on their bills. They’re bitching and moaning directly to the customer just because they need to pay their staff more and they’re butthurt a…

> It’s kind of petty to list tariffs as a separate line item and not all the other costs that contribute to the final price I can see that, but these tariffs seem unique in that they are 1) sudden 2) significant 3) broad 4) totally unmotivated

And 5) change unpredictably and rapidly.

Rates that change from day to day is a serious problem when shipping containers on a boat takes weeks or months.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#158

Would this not reveal every importer's gross margin to its competitors? The tariff is only on the importer's "landed cost". If the tariff is itemized(and not just a made up number by the seller), then you can easily work out their gross profit margin and the price they are paying their OEM. It seems like no seller would want this.

Yeah, it won't last. They'll decide it's too revealing, or too hard to calculate an actual number. People are throwing around all sorts of percentages, and none of them really mean anything because whatever the effect of tariffs is on a particular item, it's bundled up with the inflation that's been growing for years and everyone in the supply chain taking a bigger chunk because everyone else is. This is just performative.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#159
post #34

[flagged]

A trade deficit is not inherently unhealthy Then even without that, your 6 biggest companies are Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta. Then the seventh is private equity. Then it's back to Alphabet again, and Broadcom. The trade deficit calculation excludes services, including but not limited to: software So even with countries where you supposedly have trade deficits you're not even sure that you really…

[flagged]
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