Amazon’s Chinese sellers to raise prices or quit US market as tariffs hit 145%

"It'll be very hard for anyone to survive in the US market," Chinese group says.

See full article...

 

[emag]

Amazon sellers will pass tariff cost on to US consumers

No, really?

 

[mpfaff]

Goodbye electronics repairability, goodbye retro handheld hobby.

Thanks Trumpers, you got rid of the pronouns in the bio and all it cost was a big hit to standard of living and a giant tax hike. I said it before, and I'll repeat it, you're the best.

 

[Waluigi]

I'm already seeing quite a few discounted items from my Amazon wishlist in the past couple of days, they must be pushing to get rid of stock to the rest of the world, now that it's harder to sell to the US.

 

[muddledzen]

Gonna miss LI2HLSU4TECH, but maybe XIZNYLEYTEK can start shipping from somewhere else and stick around.

 

[first_citazen]

Wait, is this a bad thing? I'm trying to avoid them, now they will volunteer to disappear?

 

[Ronin_48]

I can only speak from personal experience and the people I know, but a lot of us used the trips to the USA to buy tech products and bring them back home, laptops, consoles, phones, etc (I even brought an iMac once). It was mentioned in the Vision Pro article on Ars, that a lot of the customers in New York were foreigners. This will completely disappear, even with 10% tariffs, costs will be the same as in other parts of the world and both sales tax for states with many visitors and income for many retailers will drop.

 

[cstalt]

I just wish there was a way for Amazon sellers (and all retailers) to show what portion of the price is from tariffs.

 

[Rirere]

Economics is a complex subject and very difficult to learn about on a good day. People get degrees in it, spend their lives researching it, and still get stuff wrong about it-- constantly.

That's people who are interested or passionate about the subject. Your average voter? Good lord is it frustrating watching people suddenly trying to pretend they're conversant in one of the most complex disciplines on the planet.

One of my econ professors once said that if anyone confidently asserts anything after the sentence "I'm an economist", you should stop listening to them immediately. They could be right, wrong, or anything inbetween, but they almost certainly have no idea what they're talking about.

I get that it's super frustrating but there's a reason that people who actually know things about the topic couch their language carefully, hedge their bets, all the annoying things that make it hard to get a straight answer out of someone. It's because there usually isn't one.

So to circle all the way back around: we're getting the results of economic policies made by idiots who were voted in by idiots. Love this for all of us.

 

[RickRoyLeonPrisZhoraRacha]

Gonna miss LI2HLSU4TECH, but maybe XIZNYLEYTEK can start shipping from somewhere else and stick around.

Don't forget RABBITGOO. Because when you need window film, buy from RABBITGOO.
(sarcasm. But also true!)

 

[first_citazen]

I can only speak from personal experience and the people I know, but a lot of us used the trips to the USA to buy tech products and bring them back home, laptops, consoles, phones, etc (I even brought an iMac once). It was mentioned in the Vision Pro article on Ars, that a lot of the customers in New York were foreigners. This will completely disappear, even with 10% tariffs, costs will be the same as in other parts of the world and both sales tax and income for many retailers will drop.

Don't you have to declare upon returning and pay taxes? Or is it cheaper even with that added cost?

 

[mktogeek]

The silver lining here is that if Chinese sellers pull out of Amazon, all the ripoff low-quality products by companies like ZVOWFRT and LZFDCQQ will go away. Yes, cheap stuff can be good, but we also all know how much absolute crap is shoveled onto Amazon by whack-a-mole companies selling products like "power bill savers" that contain a fake capacitor made of sand.

On the flipside those products will probably just pivot to scambaity sites where they can charge the higher prices to begin with. Krazy Ken is probably gearing up for a wild year.

 

[muddledzen]

Don't forget RABBITGOO. Because when you need window film, buy from RABBITGOO.
(sarcasm. But also true!)

Credit to them for putting in the extra time to come up with something memorable at least! The one's that make me laugh are where they've clearly done a keyboard mash and moved on while signing up.

 

[caramelpolice]

Hope it was worth it, Bezos!

 

[muddledzen]

While it will be very painful in the medium term, this is a good thing. Dependence on the single most dangerous enemy we have for just about everything is a disaster, and this is our only way out of it.

Gonna go out on a limb here and say that we've very much proven we're our own most dangerous enemy.

 

[CrisR82]

The silver lining here is that if Chinese sellers pull out of Amazon, all the ripoff low-quality products by companies like ZVOWFRT and LZFDCQQ will go away. Yes, cheap stuff can be good, but we also all know how much absolute crap is shoveled onto Amazon by whack-a-mole companies selling products like "power bill savers" that contain a fake capacitor made of sand.

On the flipside those products will probably just pivot to scambaity sites where they can charge the higher prices to begin with. Krazy Ken is probably gearing up for a wild year.

Feel free to disagree with me, but given how often here where I am, I see common-house-use-Chinese-garbage-tier-quality-item in a local store for $10 and then see on Amazon/AliExpress/Temu/other exactly the same one for $1 - yes, the actual scam stuff is really bad for people, considering how many people rely on super-cheap Chinese stuff to make it safely to the end of the month without destroying their bank account, I think this will do significantly more harm than good.

 

[Dano40]

I just wish there was a way for Amazon sellers (and all retailers) to show what portion of the price is from tariffs.

In time they will certainly every car you buy in the United States is gonna have a line item that shows exactly what the tariffs on any given day or will it be hourly you never know with this administration the guy at the top of the pyramid can’t make up his mind from one day to the next.

The Tariff (new federal sales tax) will be shown on all big ticket items. There’s no way the retailers (Car dealerships in particular) are gonna take the blame for that confused person at the top of the pyramid who happens to sit in the White House. Not when the American tax paying-customers start screaming at the point of sale.

In addition from tax time next week to the end of summer Americans will see their 401K accounts bounce up and down like a yo-yo that’s gonna get old too, in addition the present Republican led Congress figuring out (Scheming) how they’re going to cut SS and Medicare despite the fact every working American contributed their hard earned money into it some over a lifetime of work.

 

[muddledzen]

In time they will certainly every car you buy in the United States is gonna have a line item that shows exactly what the tariffs on any given day or will it be hourly you never know with this administration the guy at the top of the pyramid can’t make up his mind from one day to the next.

The new federal sales tax will be shown on all big ticket items. There’s no way the retailers (Car dealerships in particular) are gonna take the blame for that confused person at the top of the pyramid who happens to sit in the White House. Not when the American tax paying-customers start screaming at the point of sale.

Replace the stock ticker in Times Square with a tariff ticker.

 

[jatb]

While it will be very painful in the medium term, this is a good thing. Dependence on the single most dangerous enemy we have for just about everything is a disaster, and this is our only way out of it.

But not the ruling class who were shipping jobs there as quickly as possible, no. They have your interest at heart. It's the dastardly chinee.

 

[MrMcLargeHuge]

Don't forget RABBITGOO. Because when you need window film, buy from RABBITGOO.
(sarcasm. But also true!)

Ha, the dog harness my wife bought is this brand. I can't help but call it out every time I see it.

 

[ninjaneer]

Credit to them for putting in the extra time to come up with something memorable at least! The one's that make me laugh are where they've clearly done a keyboard mash and moved on while signing up.

I liked DEVOPS. They help with continuous deployment of clean underwear.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

While it will be very painful in the medium term, this is a good thing. Dependence on the single most dangerous enemy we have for just about everything is a disaster, and this is our only way out of it.

The ‘single most dangerous enemy’ you have is the criminal in the Oval Office.

 

[Coriolanus]

Right now, for most folks, tariffs are still kind of abstract.

I think it will hit differently when that $20 dollar toy they give to their kids for their birthday becomes a $40 toy. Or when their next phone costs $1000 for a bottom tier device.

 

[ColdWetDog]

Economics is a complex subject and very difficult to learn about on a good day. People get degrees in it, spend their lives researching it, and still get stuff wrong about it-- constantly.

That's people who are interested or passionate about the subject. Your average voter? Good lord is it frustrating watching people suddenly trying to pretend they're conversant in one of the most complex disciplines on the planet.

One of my econ professors once said that if anyone confidently asserts anything after the sentence "I'm an economist", you should stop listening to them immediately. They could be right, wrong, or anything inbetween, but they almost certainly have no idea what they're talking about.

I get that it's super frustrating but there's a reason that people who actually know things about the topic couch their language carefully, hedge their bets, all the annoying things that make it hard to get a straight answer out of someone. It's because there usually isn't one.

So to circle all the way back around: we're getting the results of economic policies made by idiots who were voted in by idiots. Love this for all of us.

The Nobel Prize in Economics has always annoyed me. Might as well have a Nobel Prize in Aromatherapy.

 

[muddledzen]

Right now, for most folks, tariffs are still kind of abstract.

I think it will hit differently when that $20 dollar toy they give to their kids for their birthday becomes a $40 toy. Or when their next phone costs $1000 for a bottom tier device.

Silver lining (because I have to find the silver lining or it's too depressing): tariff's hitting goods that hard will at least pull more people into repair/repurpose type communities, and also 2nd hand which is a boon for the environment.

Slim silver lining overall, but it's there.

 

[Snark218]

Economics is a complex subject and very difficult to learn about on a good day. People get degrees in it, spend their lives researching it, and still get stuff wrong about it-- constantly.

That's people who are interested or passionate about the subject. Your average voter? Good lord is it frustrating watching people suddenly trying to pretend they're conversant in one of the most complex disciplines on the planet.

One of my econ professors once said that if anyone confidently asserts anything after the sentence "I'm an economist", you should stop listening to them immediately. They could be right, wrong, or anything inbetween, but they almost certainly have no idea what they're talking about.

I get that it's super frustrating but there's a reason that people who actually know things about the topic couch their language carefully, hedge their bets, all the annoying things that make it hard to get a straight answer out of someone. It's because there usually isn't one.

So to circle all the way back around: we're getting the results of economic policies made by idiots who were voted in by idiots. Love this for all of us.

One of the few basics that is nearly always true about economics is that tariffs get passed on to consumers, though, so there's really no excuse for anyone to argue otherwise.

But the thing to remember is that this is all Calvinball to these people. They don't know shit and they have no respect for anyone who does. They don't care about consistency or principles or values or objective fact. This is about defending the position they have chosen to defend, today, in this moment, against a potential source of disagreement and cognitive dissonance. In order to do that, they have to shout you down as forcefully and as confidently as they possibly can, and because they don't know shit, they just repeat what they've been told. That's why they're all spookily uniform in saying the same things the same ways.

 

[ColdWetDog]

If Donny is cleaning up the amazon flea market minefield, does that mean i need to find a red hat?

Ever heard of Pyrrhic victories?

 

[jhesse]

I can only speak from personal experience and the people I know, but a lot of us used the trips to the USA to buy tech products and bring them back home, laptops, consoles, phones, etc (I even brought an iMac once). It was mentioned in the Vision Pro article on Ars, that a lot of the customers in New York were foreigners. This will completely disappear, even with 10% tariffs, costs will be the same as in other parts of the world and both sales tax for states with many visitors and income for many retailers will drop.

With the Customs and Border Protection officers acting even more jack-booted than they previously did, those trips to the USA for shopping are going away anyways.

 

[Flailsafe]

So wasn't one of the post facto reasons for tariffing the world was to prevent (Chinese) goods from shipping from another country?

So what's to stop a flood of 'Indian' goods or another country from filling the gaps, whose products are remarkably similar to the previous?

 

[Snark218]

So wasn't one of the post facto reasons for tariffing the world was to prevent (Chinese) goods from shipping from another country?

So what's to stop a flood of 'Indian' goods or another country from filling the gaps?

I think that was yesterday morning's post facto reason.

 

[Alfonse]

The Nobel Prize in Economics has always annoyed me. Might as well have a Nobel Prize in Aromatherapy.

Economics is a real field. It's just based on a fuzzy foundation: people's behavior.

That being said, there is no "Nobel Prize in Economics". There is a "Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences".

 

[Anton Longshot]

Economics is a complex subject and very difficult to learn about on a good day. People get degrees in it, spend their lives researching it, and still get stuff wrong about it-- constantly.

That's people who are interested or passionate about the subject. Your average voter? Good lord is it frustrating watching people suddenly trying to pretend they're conversant in one of the most complex disciplines on the planet.

One of my econ professors once said that if anyone confidently asserts anything after the sentence "I'm an economist", you should stop listening to them immediately. They could be right, wrong, or anything inbetween, but they almost certainly have no idea what they're talking about.

I get that it's super frustrating but there's a reason that people who actually know things about the topic couch their language carefully, hedge their bets, all the annoying things that make it hard to get a straight answer out of someone. It's because there usually isn't one.

So to circle all the way back around: we're getting the results of economic policies made by idiots who were voted in by idiots. Love this for all of us.

Reminds me - many many years ago the then NL prime minister Joop den Uyl stated in a TV interview: "I have a doctorate in economics. Do you think that means I understand how the economy works?
I don't. NO ONE DOES!"

 

[Coriolanus]

1. The ruling class is us. Just the group of us that happen to control material wealth at the moment. For all the blather about rising inquality, that comes and goes, just like money.
2. We used to have jobs provided by those evil oppressors, but they moved them overseas because the incentives of free trade favor that. Putting up barriers incentivizes having the jobs be domestic instead.

Okay, maybe it's just me but I don't understand how you reconcile "We are the ruling class" with "The evil oppressors took our jobs away!"

Those seem like two contradictory statements

 

[PonyExpress]

This article is too optimistic, these "garbage sellers" may slow down a bit, but they aren't going anywhere. They are not a problem, they are a feature, which Amazon purposefully bred and fed so that they colonized the entire ecosystem.

 

[muddledzen]

So wasn't one of the post facto reasons for tariffing the world was to prevent (Chinese) goods from shipping from another country?

So what's to stop a flood of 'Indian' goods or another country from filling the gaps?

This is what I expect... no reason to move manufacturing here when they can shuffle it sideways for much cheaper.

Of course Trump will still call that a win since he likes Modi better than the Chinese.

 

[Snark218]

The silver lining here is that if Chinese sellers pull out of Amazon, all the ripoff low-quality products by companies like ZVOWFRT and LZFDCQQ will go away. Yes, cheap stuff can be good, but we also all know how much absolute crap is shoveled onto Amazon by whack-a-mole companies selling products like "power bill savers" that contain a fake capacitor made of sand.

On the flipside those products will probably just pivot to scambaity sites where they can charge the higher prices to begin with. Krazy Ken is probably gearing up for a wild year.

I'll miss Anker devices.