Small U.S. town, big company. Can it weather the tariff Blizzard? (Digi-Key) (2025)
1–10 of 43 posts
Re: Small U.S. town, big company. Can it weather the tariff Blizzard? (Digi-Key) (2025)
#2It's hard to overstate how screwed hardware design and prototyping would be if companies like digi-key went under. There's only a few electronics distributors like them around and most of them are centered in the US.
Re: Small U.S. town, big company. Can it weather the tariff Blizzard? (Digi-Key) (2025)
#3It's hard to overstate how screwed hardware design and prototyping would be if companies like digi-key went under. There's only a few electronics distributors like them around and most of them are centered in the US.
If we lost Digikey, Mouser, and AVNET, it would be catastrophic. Entire US engineering divisions would leave for Shenzhen.
Re: Small U.S. town, big company. Can it weather the tariff Blizzard? (Digi-Key) (2025)
#4Does North America have some supply of those electronics components, or are we totally depending on Asian producers? I assume if prices hike up it will improve local production — or it was suggested since the introduction of more tariffs.
Re: Small U.S. town, big company. Can it weather the tariff Blizzard? (Digi-Key) (2025)
#5When I order from Mouser (a Digi-key competitor based in Dallas) they plainly charge a 10-15% tariff fee. I'm struggling to understand why this solution isn't obvious. You have to pass the cost onto the consumer, or your margins dwindle. It's trivial math.
> People are also having to intervene in once-automated tasks. Thousands of orders that used to auto-flow directly to the warehouse floor for same-day shipping now often miscalculate tariff costs.
Charge a blanket tariff fee like Mouser.
Re: Small U.S. town, big company. Can it weather the tariff Blizzard? (Digi-Key) (2025)
#6I've only seen a small portion of the chaos from my side of the market, but that's been chaotic enough.
All of this chaos has actually slowed down our US manufacturing buildout. We'd like to build US factories, but we're having to slow them because of the uncertainty. A foreign factory only has the uncertainty on the US import/export, while a US factory has uncertainty on all imports/exports.
Re: Small U.S. town, big company. Can it weather the tariff Blizzard? (Digi-Key) (2025)
#7When I order from Mouser (a Digi-key competitor based in Dallas) they plainly charge a 10-15% tariff fee. I'm struggling to understand why this solution isn't obvious. You have to pass the cost onto the consumer, or your margins dwindle. It's trivial math. > People are also having to intervene in once-automated tasks. Thousands of orders that used to auto-flow directly to the warehouse floor for same-day shipping now…
Yeah that’s what I thought too. I think people are find with some 50-100% hike of prices on ham radios, oscilloscopes, and even phones, if local production starts to appear.
Re: Small U.S. town, big company. Can it weather the tariff Blizzard? (Digi-Key) (2025)
#8When I order from Mouser (a Digi-key competitor based in Dallas) they plainly charge a 10-15% tariff fee. I'm struggling to understand why this solution isn't obvious. You have to pass the cost onto the consumer, or your margins dwindle. It's trivial math. > People are also having to intervene in once-automated tasks. Thousands of orders that used to auto-flow directly to the warehouse floor for same-day shipping now…
Yeah that’s what I thought too. I think people are find with some 50-100% hike of prices on ham radios, oscilloscopes, and even phones, if local production starts to appear.
What lol no they’re not.
None of those benefits of a price hike go to American workers. They get low wage factory jobs, not old school pension jobs, and all their stuff goes up in price?
Laughable. I doubt Americans won’t even pay 5% more to get stuff made in the USA.
Re: Small U.S. town, big company. Can it weather the tariff Blizzard? (Digi-Key) (2025)
#9When I order from Mouser (a Digi-key competitor based in Dallas) they plainly charge a 10-15% tariff fee. I'm struggling to understand why this solution isn't obvious. You have to pass the cost onto the consumer, or your margins dwindle. It's trivial math. > People are also having to intervene in once-automated tasks. Thousands of orders that used to auto-flow directly to the warehouse floor for same-day shipping now…
> > People are also having to intervene in once-automated tasks. Thousands of orders that used to auto-flow directly to the warehouse floor for same-day shipping now often miscalculate tariff costs.
> Charge a blanket tariff fee like Mouser.
The importer still needs to pay the correct tariff.
Also, according to the article, a big part of the problem for is that Digi-Key does substantial business selling imported parts to non-US buyers. It’s fantastic for the US that this business can exist (money flows into the US and actual good jobs are created), but the tariff system makes is difficult to run this part of the business and there’s a lot of pressure to move those jobs and the revenue to a different country that doesn’t have this problem.
Re: Small U.S. town, big company. Can it weather the tariff Blizzard? (Digi-Key) (2025)
#10Should note that this article is from April 2025. Digikey sruvives and the tariffs are supposed to be refunded.