Tracking toy tariffs

5K has gotten their first post-tariff shipment of product in. Nothing I had on order, but they re-iterated that they weren't upcharging for any already-preordered product and mentioned that their own cost (unsurprisingly) went up significantly.

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5Ktoys.com on Instagram: "We’ve just received the first batch of goods after the tariff increase, and of course, our costs have risen significantly. However, as we promised, prices for items already preordered will remain unchanged. The 2nd payment i

469 likes, 45 comments - 5ktoys on April 22, 2025: "We’ve just received the first batch of goods after the tariff increase, and of course, our costs have risen significantly. However, as we promised, prices for items already preordered will remain unchanged. The 2nd payment is now up and ready...
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Well Trump has now said the tariffs will drop substantially. Being as how he always measures a president's success by how the stock market is doing, he has to be thinking he needs to do something to improve things in that regard.

Saw this graphic earlier that probably sums up how this whole thing will end up going. At least I hope so.
b6ed1b4f6b3e0c136cac4653e43a6db4.jpg
 
cmoney said:
Treasury Sec. is saying the tariff situation with China is recognized as "unsustainable" by both sides and expects "de-escalation" in the "very near future". Yeah, we'll see. But it was enough to goose the market a little.
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From the outside that seems ballsy given that the head of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell said the same thing last week but in a far tamer way and Trump immediately came out and said that he couldn't be fired fast enough.

Trump had to just rail against him publicly as opposed to firing him since a 1935 Supreme Court decision prevents presidents from doing it themselves.
 
Certainly happy that it seems to be lessening (for now, anyway), but man, all this up and down is arguably worse for my mental health than just diving in headfirst. Can't fully relax or prepare if I'm constantly anticipating the next rug pull.
 
I’m relieved to hear that things are in the works to improve the situation. I think this was maybe a good wake up call for the toy industry. We’ve gotten to the point that long preorders are the norm, unless you’re McFarlane. So much can change in those months or years from preorder to fulfillment. I’m not sure what the best solution to that is but it’s maybe something manufacturers to consider now and maybe take more of the McFarlane approach? Although those insanely quick sell outs are not something I want normalized.
 
Businesses of all types require some amount of stability and predictability - there's no amount of pivoting the toy industry can do to account for this level of disruption. If this is a wake up call to anyone, I hope it's to all the corpos who have been willing to play this devil's gambit with the lunatic right-wing fringe in exchange for lower regulations and tax rates.

I'm glad the rhetoric is cooling but it doesn't seem like anything substantive has changed just yet. Or maybe it has - it's been hard to parse out what the situation is at any given moment.
 
Buttmunch said:
I’m relieved to hear that things are in the works to improve the situation. I think this was maybe a good wake up call for the toy industry. We’ve gotten to the point that long preorders are the norm, unless you’re McFarlane. So much can change in those months or years from preorder to fulfillment. I’m not sure what the best solution to that is but it’s maybe something manufacturers to consider now and maybe take more of the McFarlane approach? Although those insanely quick sell outs are not something I want normalized.
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For smaller toy companies the safest, sanest solution is the one the fans understand the least, which is a kickstarter model. That way you collect the money you need and know exactly the size run you've got to have. It won't get you around sudden tariffs or shipping issues, nothing really will, but it saves you from doing a pre-order run that you collect no money on and then having too many people cancel before shipping to keep your business afloat once you've sunk cash into molds and such.
hmmberto said:
Businesses of all types require some amount of stability and predictability - there's no amount of pivoting the toy industry can do to account for this level of disruption. If this is a wake up call to anyone, I hope it's to all the corpos who have been willing to play this devil's gambit with the lunatic right-wing fringe in exchange for lower regulations and tax rates.
Click to expand...
Yeah, this. There's just no business that could account for things like this. It's a black Swan event on the scale of the Suez blockage or the pandemic. If you can't trust that the guy pulling massive economic levers is invested in long term stability then you're effectively at war with your own country's trade policy. Even if the rhetoric dies down, our trust on the global market is gone. I can't imagine us getting it back within a decade, likely longer, and that's assuming Trump never makes another move like this again, and of course he will. It's all he knows.
 
I just read an article that says China’s plastic industry is in a real pickle as there is one critical ingredient they need that’s virtually only available from the US. Without it, they can’t produce the plastics that other factories and industries need. They’ve been getting petroleum from other places since the US import freeze but they can’t get this one element. They’ll lose money importing it with the tariff but can’t make anything without it.

Obviously this is a big deal for our toy interests but that could have major implications on so many other industries if China can’t make their own plastic. Sounds like both sides have significant reasons to play nice and make this a mutually beneficial trade deal. Hopefully it happens quickly and things return close to normal in the end.
 
Apparently it was the meeting with the Walmart, Target, and Home Depot CEOs that started to change Trump's stance on the high tariffs.
 
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