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Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

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Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#191

Post by danesparza »

ceejayoz wrote: post #117
gherkinnn wrote: post #109

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.

Yup. My grocery store raised bananas from 49¢/pound to 55¢/pound this week, with a sign about 10% tariffs… but the tariff would be on their wholesale costs, not the shelf costs. They're probably paying 1-2¢/pound extra. People have a hard enough time understanding who pays tariffs. Stores'll be able to muddy the waters this way pretty much at will.

Pretty sure those bananas are grown elsewhere. Hopefully we'll still be able to get bananas in the near future. At some point, buyer demand will drop so much it may not make sense to ship them.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#192

Post by sorcerer-mar »

ericmay wrote: post #63
alphabetting wrote: post #43

Over half of Amazon's third party sellers are Chinese companies who regularly false report to dodge tariffs on their products in ways that American competitors can't. Amazon claims to police them but they're extremely reliant on them at this point and the Chinese sellers just start up new brands if penalized. https://x.com/zackkanter/status/1908343624464576666

The best way to avoid this kind of behavior is to avoid shopping at stores where you can’t trace the origin of their products. Stop buying “brands”, and looking for “deals” and acting like a consumer. Do research and find high quality products, pay more for those products, buy less disposable junk. This isn’t just a “China” thing it’s in general.

This is actually the exact reason for the existence of brands. You absolutely should buy brands, and stop buying random "RANDOMCAPITALLETTERS Product 1"

But yeah, what people think of as good, high-quality brands often are not.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#193

Post by Zamaamiro »

paulcole wrote: post #97
jll29 wrote: 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.

This is quite a display of mental gymnastics and historical revisionism.

The last couple of years have seen a massive post-COVID backlash to incumbent parties all over the world—Democrats were just caught in the wave.

Why on Earth would anyone not call them anything but Trump Tariffs when he is the one who imposed them and when they’re uniquely his idea?

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#194

Post by danesparza »

ceejayoz wrote: post #138
Aurornis wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The demand side in particular can be tweaked by human factors, though. We have advertising because the level of demand isn't some fundamental cosmic constant of the universe like the speed of light. "The price went up 10%, that must be the 10% tariffs" is something consumers will inherently understand… but it's not the case. The 10% is not on the on-the-shelf price; it's on the wholesale price the importer's charging…

You can increase demand as high as you'd like. If people don't have money to buy it, they're not going to buy it.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#195

Post by Aurornis »

ceejayoz wrote: post #182
Aurornis wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything in the world makes more sense when you accept that it’s all supply and demand. The net worth of the family that owns the business is irrelevant.

Supply and demand can both be impacted by perception, which can be tweaked by humans. If tariffs increase the wholesale cost of an item by $1, but you can make consumers think $5 retail is what the increase should be, that’s an extra $4 in your pocket. Economics education doesn’t stop at 101 for a good reason. “Supply and demand” is like “veins carry deoxygenated blood” - it’s largely true, but further learning revea…

> Supply and demand can both be impacted by perception, which can be tweaked by humans.

Supply and demand is impacted by many factors, but it’s still supply and demand.

You can put different labels on different components of the influences, but at the end of the day it’s still supply and demand.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#196

Post by Arainach »

breadwinner wrote: post #189
profmonocle wrote: post #76

I'm fine with this as long as they include the tariff in the listed price. I'm worried businesses are going to use tariffs as an excuse to have a fake list price, then hit you with massive hidden fees at the point of sale. Some sectors have been doing this for years - "service fees" at restaurants, "regulatory response fees" in the telecom industry, all sorts of nonsense in event ticketing. Physical goods have mostly…

> Some sectors have been doing this for years - "service fees" at restaurants... If the additional fees is government-forced, such as taxes, then it makes sense to display it separately. You are throwing government-forced costs and regular business costs in the same bucket. If tariffs should be included in the listed price then why not taxes?

These generally aren't taxes. These are conservative business owners complaining about having to pay a living wage rather than a poverty wage.

When the rent goes up, the prices change. When insurance goes up, prices change. When labor costs go up it's a "service charge"? That's garbage, just set your prices accordingly.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#197

Post by bluGill »

clbrmbr wrote: post #81
profmonocle wrote: post #76

I'm fine with this as long as they include the tariff in the listed price. I'm worried businesses are going to use tariffs as an excuse to have a fake list price, then hit you with massive hidden fees at the point of sale. Some sectors have been doing this for years - "service fees" at restaurants, "regulatory response fees" in the telecom industry, all sorts of nonsense in event ticketing. Physical goods have mostly…

100% this. I’d take it a step further and say that sales tax should be included when you are logged in and it can be anticipated, like is the case in most other countries.

Sales tax cannot be per-calculated, since it is charged on the total sale. Rounding errors will get you. (when I worked fast food 30 years ago one value meal was $3.18, but two were $6.27) The government pays attention to this type of thing and they will get you for those pennies. (remember there are many governments, it is possibly all the local governments in question would decide not to pay attention, but that doesn't mean those rules apply to someone else who lives in a different area and thus has different local governments)

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#198

Post by pentamassiv »

breadwinner wrote: post #189
profmonocle wrote: post #76

I'm fine with this as long as they include the tariff in the listed price. I'm worried businesses are going to use tariffs as an excuse to have a fake list price, then hit you with massive hidden fees at the point of sale. Some sectors have been doing this for years - "service fees" at restaurants, "regulatory response fees" in the telecom industry, all sorts of nonsense in event ticketing. Physical goods have mostly…

> Some sectors have been doing this for years - "service fees" at restaurants... If the additional fees is government-forced, such as taxes, then it makes sense to display it separately. You are throwing government-forced costs and regular business costs in the same bucket. If tariffs should be included in the listed price then why not taxes?

I think they want the price to be the amount they will have to pay to get the item or service. On the bill you can then split up the price into taxes, tariffs and whatever else you want so they are not thrown into the same bucket.

That way there's no surprise at the checkout and you still see how much of the money goes to whom.

It works very well in the rest of the world

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#199

Post by [deleted] »

crazygringo wrote: post #180
SecretDreams wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only tariff Amazon needs to display is the one they need to collect. You are right that more tariffs might've been applied along the way - but it's not relevant for what Amazon has to do.

Does Amazon collect any tariffs at all? That would be unusual for a retailer. Unless they're registered as an importer? I could see that as a service they might provide to certain sellers, just like warehousing and other logistics. But generally, they will receive their merchandise from a corporate entity who paid the tariff already.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#200

Post by stetrain »

dgfitz wrote: post #110
stetrain wrote: post #90

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.

Prices fluctuate all the time especially on Amazon items. Inflation is also a factor. Just taking prices from Jan 19, 2025 as a baseline and attributing all other changes to tariffs isn't going to be accurate.
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