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Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

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Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#281

Post by ceejayoz »

xienze wrote: post #271
ceejayoz wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an argument for fixing the rules . As functional rules in this regard are clearly possible to create. The EU has a similar smattering of disparate jurisdictions (with varying VAT rates) just like the US does.

Googling says 27 tax jurisdictions in the EU versus over 13000 in the US. Again, not quite as simple as you're making it out to be. And for what? Making the checkout process slightly more convenient for people who lack the mental ability to estimate their total?

> Googling says 27 tax jurisdictions in the EU versus over 13000 in the US.

Cool, great place to start. Let's fix that. Both have similar land mass, similar populations, similar balance of federal-ish and state-ish and local-ish governance, similar cultures, etc.

> And for what? Making the checkout process slightly more convenient for people who lack the mental ability to estimate their total?

Surely handling 13k tax jurisdictions is expensive for businesses and consumers on many levels?

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#282

Post by indoordin0saur »

devrandoom wrote: post #42
alistairSH wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indirectly… Tariff is based on their cost, not list price, right?

That requires you to know when the item was imported. The tarrif forecast is a harder business than mid level wizardry.

My favorite brand drops a new pair of shoes in June. I order them shortly thereafter. They are imported from China who at the time has a 100% tariff. I see a $5 tariff charge. I now know that the $250 pair of shoes actually cost the retailer $5 and my boyfriend who keeps telling me they are cheap trash is suddenly vindicated.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#283

Post by littlestymaar »

mrits wrote: post #125
acdha wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example? Usually short term price fluctuation would be in response to something like a sudden change in market demand or something like a natural disaster lowering production but nothing like that seems to have happened other than the largest tax increase in U.S. history and the demand shock from the federal cuts should be lowering prices, not raising them.

Price fluctuation doesn't usually depend on market demand or natural disasters. How you got that idea is beyond me.

I've been convinced for a while that teaching economics broadly is a mistake, people who have taken a minimum amount of economics class do in fact understand less how the economy works than people who don't…

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#284

Post by dylan604 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #143
Aurornis wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grocery stores have famously low margins. Everyone thinks they’re cash cows, but they have some of the thinnest profit margins of common consumer businesses. Stores often sell common staples like bananas, generic milk, and other basics at close to cost. They’re the things that get people in the door. They make their profit on things like cereal, deli meats, packaged goods, and other non-staple items that people also…

Low margins, high volume. The family owners of our regional privately held grocery store chain (Wegmans) are worth billions. They're making plenty.

How much of that wealth is tied directly to the store chain vs investments they have made elsewhere?

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#285

Post by dylan604 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #239
ceejayoz wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We haven't had 49 cent bananas in my market for a longtime, so I'm wondering if they were adjusting for tariffs as well as just general inflation at the same time (but the sign wouldn't be honest in that case).

is truth in marketing still a thing?

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#286

Post by pessimizer »

reverendsteveii wrote: post #228
neogodless wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically Karoline Leavitt said it.

thank you for correcting me. the point still stands: it's really weird the way the government uses "political" as a pejorative when everything they do is, by definition, political. it smacks of doublethink.

Not if your point was that Trump Really Said It. You said one thing and it was wrong. And since it was in the second sentence of the article you linked, I assume you just read the headline.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#287

Post by blululu »

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.

Agreed in practice, but there is a key difference: sales tax is uniform for all products, import tariffs are not. As a customer I want to effectively compare prices between different options. For sales tax you can simply assume a uniform 9% bump. For tariffs the fee varies for comparable products. I would prefer knowing the full price ahead of times but I absolutely need to know the relative price ranking.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#288

Post by Yeul »

ceejayoz wrote: post #202
danesparza wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People need to eat.

Apparently my country is technically capable of being self sufficient but people diet would have to change back to the 19th century if we were completely cut off (no coffee, tea, tomatoes, bananas, shiracha sauce).

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#289

Post by Clubber »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #278
Clubber wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, good point. I suspect the numbers won't be precise. The objective is to qualify raising prices, not necessarily their own transparency. Of course this is signaling that Amazon is choosing to distribute the costs to customers rather than absorbing them in any way, so take that for what it is.

> Yes, good point. I suspect the numbers won't be precise. This has to be illegal. You can't slap on a $20 sales tax fee at the end when it's actually $12 and pocket the difference as profit.

This isn't sales tax, this is tariff. Not sure if they are any laws regarding that or not.

It might be like shipping and handling: $20. The shipping is probably $5, the handling is $15. The handling is just a fee they charge to sell it to you. They want you to think it's shipping that's why they put "shipping" first. Uber Eats calls it "taxes and other fees," which are mostly fees, but they want you to think it's taxes, that's why they put "taxes" first.

Many business are scummy like that, we've just gotten used to it.

The point being, they are signaling a price hike and they are trying to attribute it to tariffs, which maybe or may not be true down to the penny. If they were exact in what the tariff was, people can easily calculate their cost, which Amazon doesn't want. I'm sure they will sneak in some extra profit in there at some point using similar tactics as described above.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#290

Post by CamperBob2 »

graemep wrote: post #270
acdha wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but how many of those dramatically jumped recently? Two years from now, sure, you’ll have to ask about other things but it’s not like the commodities market had other massive upsets this month.

Oil has varied in a range of about 23% in the last few weeks, and the USD to CNY rate. Raw material for many things (like plastics) and obviously used for transport.

Oil has primarily gone down. Demand destruction tends to do that.
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