Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers
366 comments
·April 29, 2025StanAngeloff
abirch
Yes, Amazon is denying it though it would make sense.
“The team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Haul store has considered the idea of listing import charges on certain products,” the company said in a statement. “Teams discuss ideas all the time. This was never a consideration for the main Amazon site and nothing has been implemented on any Amazon properties.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-29/white-hou...
ethbr1
Should probably get an [updated], since the submission title now seems inaccurate after Amazon clarification.
profmonocle
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 been spared this type of fake pricing - aside from sales tax not being included, but that's been universally true in the US forever so everyone is used to it.
Tariffs could be the end of that if businesses see sales plummet. Especially because these scams actually work - the reason restaurants give for not just increasing their menu prices is because higher listed prices drive people away.
gherkinnn
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.
rlpb
Of course businesses charge the maximum the market will tolerate. That’s how it’s supposed to work. No need to treat this as surprising, nefarious or unexpected.
kangda123
Uncertainty costs money. It's normal to require extra pay for extra risk.
fallinghawks
Back when the price of crude oil was in the news a lot, if a rise was announced, gas stations would immediately hike prices, even though it takes like a month for the oil to be refined into gas and delivered to the station.
Aurornis
Inventory is priced and sold according to market conditions, not the cost of goods.
Everyone does this. If someone was trying to sell their old car and they saw news of upcoming tariffs on cars, they’d expect to sell their car at a higher price even though the tariffed cars haven’t arrived yet.
A second factor is that volatility and unpredictable policy raises risk, which increases prices. There will be a lot of price increases in excess of base tariff rates simply because everything is changing rapidly on the whims of this administration and businesses need more buffer for unexpected shocks.
If you’re a company who set up manufacturing in China, placed orders 4 months ago, and you’re watching the tariff rate change from 65% to 125% or more in the span of days with threats of more, you have to increase your prices a lot to have more buffer. Those parts you ordered now have an unpredictable price tags attached when they arrive at the port. It’s completely out of control.
CobaltFire
Interestingly I’ve seen the exact opposite happen and cause major problems.
In Japan the US Military buys fuel and sets the price at its on base stations according to what they purchase it for. On several occasions when I lived there this resulted in the Base CO having to address everyone and tell them if they don’t buy the fuel (that is now significantly cheaper outside the gate) then the Exchange cannot buy new fuel, and they may have to shut the station down permanently.
It never came to that; everyone just went and paid the higher price for a tank and the issue was resolved.
My point is that trying to price a commodity that moves prices like that by a lagging indicator is a great way to capture business on one side and a great way to go bankrupt on the other.
echoangle
That's perfectly rational though. Stuff is priced taking into account the current value, and a raising crude oil price immediately increases the value of the already refined product. Just like falling prices would immediately lower the value of the already refined product.
ttoinou
Maybe you believe in the theory that "price of good = cost + profit" ? It's wrong
amanaplanacanal
They have to. When it comes time to refill their tanks they need the money, which they won't have if they keep charging the old price.
lallysingh
Gas stations generally break even on gas due to high local competition. They'll try to profit from a service center or a shop.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF
That's expected
If I bought a gallon of water for a dollar and then there was a terrible water shortage I would not let it go for two dollars
ceejayoz
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.
Aurornis
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 buy once they’re inside.
It’s similar to how many gas stations compete on cost of gas to get people there, but hope that you’ll stop inside and get a $6 drink or some $5 packaged snacks.
Then you have to consider all of the other things that go into a store are also tariffed. The parts for the trucks that transport the bananas have tariffs. Many of their cleaning supplies. Parts for the checkout registers. The light bulbs they have to replace. Many of those tariffs could be well over 100%. They have to make up that price in the cost of bananas and everything else.
danesparza
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.
seanmcdirmid
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).
Aurornis
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 every economist is calling the tariffs a big problem. Companies won’t have room to raise prices infinitely because they feel like it, because consumers are about to be able to afford fewer things because the things they need are getting more expensive.
bryanlarsen
It's a lot more complicated than that. Prices are sticky. When you raise prices, consumers notice and your sales go down. Therefore price changes are generally larger and less frequent than would be indicated by a pure supply & demand situation. And that's just one complication among many.
iterance
Supply and demand is one driver of economic pricing, but not the only driver. Efficient pricing is a complex topic and not as black-and-white as it seems. As demand falls, the price may be expected to fall, but there is an inelastic limit set by material, labor, transport, and taxation cost. A company may elect to decrease their profit margin per sale to offset increased costs, but there is only so much margin to eat.
In the current circumstances, though, companies do not have a choice to lower prices. The basic cost of taking an item into inventory from these suppliers has risen significantly, in most cases well above 2024 margins.
The net effect is that, despite the market's best effort to correct prices to within an affordable range, costs may rise considerably and availability may still fall regardless. Under severe shock to the system, the usual maxims that account for nominal shifts in day to day trading no longer apply.
4ndrewl
The reason the stock market is down is because of the raging uncertainty of the environment in which businesses have to navigate. Multi-month, let alone multi-year planning has become impossible. Businesses can deal with tariffs, taxes and costs. What they can't deal with is uncertainty.
ceejayoz
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. The $20 shirt at Old Navy is probably $4 (with $0.40 in tariffs added) for tariff purposes… but they'll add $2 to it anyways, because consumers will go "oh ok". There's a massive information asymmetry here.
The unpredictable nature of these specific tariffs is fairly unique, too. The rates change randomly, with zero warning, and how they're set isn't sensical. With ships across the ocean taking weeks, that's gonna chill the supply side as well.
xnx
> Prices are always set by supply and demand.
True, but human psychology is a huge confounding factor. One area where this is evident is gas prices that "go up like a rocket, and come down like a feather" in response to crude oil prices. Simple supply and demand does not explain this.
enragedcacti
> Prices are always set by supply and demand.
Normally I'd make a joke about econ 101 but I'm pretty sure you'd lose points for answering with this in an econ 101 class
lvl155
You ever heard of pricing power? Monopoly and monopsony?
weakfish
I am so tired of people echoing “supply and demand” like it’s Econ 101. The modern market is infinitely more complex with infinitely more ways to create inefficiencies that don’t respond to simple supply and demand.
throwaway83845
In my experience, once they raise prices due to "external reasons", once they lower prices they are almost always higher than the original price. At least for goods that people buy anyway
snarf21
They did the same for inflation and oil prices and any other thing they can blame on someone else.
clbrmbr
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.
blululu
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.
phil21
> but there is a key difference: sales tax is uniform for all products
Sales tax is not uniform for all products depending on your state. My home state for example does not charge sales tax on food items and clothing. Some other special categories also have different sales tax depending on what they are - e.g. vice taxes for some items.
bluGill
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)
ceejayoz
> Sales tax cannot be per-calculated, since it is charged on the total sale.
Most of the developed world pre-calculates sales tax.
If McDonalds charges you $10.32 in Australia, the government gets $0.84(8181812...) of it. Rounding isn't an issue because you don't write a check for each individual $0.84(8181812...), you pay them the aggregate amount on a regular basis.
pentamassiv
Sure it can. It works perfectly fine in many other countries.
AStonesThrow
> one value meal was $3.18, but two were $6.27
That sure is a HUGE rounding error! 9¢ savings by doubling up is nothing to sneeze at!
> they will get you for those pennies
Was your restaurant ever audited? That is a lot of pennies!
pentamassiv
A few days ago I tried ordering a bottle cage for my bike from the US. The price was 22.95€. At the checkout, they added a "Tariff Recovery fee" of 1.84€. On top of that, they charged 60.25€ for shipping. The grand total was 80.04€.
I stopped trying to buy stuff from the US, because there's always a ton of added costs
throwaway7894
In stores yes, but on the Internet, including it in the price makes it easier to bump up prices. Showing the price without tariff allows you to easily compare before / after, and then when you see tariff added to your bottom line order (e.g. on Amazon) it should drive home the point that tariffs are a tax paid for by the consumers (which unfortunately lots of people still dont believe).
zmgsabst
I actually think that would backfire:
I see two items for $5, but when I add the imported one, suddenly it costs more — and Amazon didn’t tell me that ahead of time or give me any way to choose the one without tariffs on the grid/list view.
This makes tariffs more effective because they can’t bump the domestic price to match — while giving customers a negative chock each time they choose an importer for a product.
throwaway7894
In your example, why would the domestic seller keep their price at $5 if the other option costs $15?
They'll just raise the price of the domestic good to $13 and we will all pay $8 extra on a thing that used to cost $5.
If the price displayed is still $5 but tariffs added at the end, the domestic seller's $13 sticker price will not look attractive to buyers.
sowbug
You say this as if the domestic seller wouldn't also raise prices.
breadwinner
> 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?
pentamassiv
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
breadwinner
The reason that works in the rest of the world is, taxes are the same throughout the country. For example in the UK, the standard VAT rate (20%) applies uniformly to most goods, throughout the UK. So the price can be printed on the label. In the US some states have no sales tax at all, for example Oregon.
Arainach
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.
breadwinner
Tariffs are not labor costs.
Aissen
> aside from sales tax not being included, but that's been universally true in the US forever so everyone is used to it.
Why are you putting this under the rug so easily? It's never too late to changes those ludicrous behaviors, even if everyone is accustomed to it.
crazygringo
It's not about being used to it. There's good reason sales tax isn't included in the price, which is that sales tax varies locally. It isn't even the same per ZIP code. You couldn't advertise a statewide or nationwide price if you had to include sales tax. You couldn't display prices online at all until you entered your full address, which seems antithetical to privacy.
This is different from most other countries, where the tax is the same nation-wide.
mrguyorama
This is a distraction.
The regional supermarket chain in new england that is owned by kroger ALREADY localizes their weekly sales flyer TO THE STORE despite every store in the state having the exact same tax rates.
They STILL don't include the tax in the price listed because fuck you, this is america
CivBase
Probably because it's just not as impactful as hidden tariff costs would be. Sales tax is relatively small and consistent. Depending on the product a tariff could be negligable or it could double the sticker price and the customer would have no way of knowing until checkout.
dboreham
Perhaps whoever decided to impose massive sales taxes (tariffs) should have thought of that?
ryandrake
It’s kind of petty to list tariffs as a separate line item and not all the other costs that contribute to the final price. Why just the tariffs, unless Amazon is trying to make a political point?
It strikes me as just as petty as when restaurants started listing “Living Wage Fee” on their bills. They’re bitching and moaning directly to the customer just because they need to pay their staff more and they’re butthurt about it. Why not list all the restaurant’s costs as line items on the bill? They could list the customer’s proportion of the restaurant’s rent, electricity charge, water bill, licensing and taxes if they wanted to. But no, all they put in your face is the Living Wage Fee.
gruez
>It’s kind of petty to list tariffs as a separate line item and not all the other costs that contribute to the final price.
Like sales taxes? Or environmental disposal fees? Both are listed separately in my experience.
xnx
> It’s kind of petty to list tariffs as a separate line item and not all the other costs that contribute to the final price
I can see that, but these tariffs seem unique in that they are 1) sudden 2) significant 3) broad 4) totally unmotivated
ceejayoz
And 5) change unpredictably and rapidly.
Rates that change from day to day is a serious problem when shipping containers on a boat takes weeks or months.
ceejayoz
> Why just the tariffs, unless Amazon is trying to make a political point?
Why would they not want to make this political point?
echoangle
They are making a point, probably hoping that it will help abolish the tariffs (which they fear will reduce their profit by reducing consumption).
bathtub365
This seems in line with other government taxes on goods that the consumer ends up paying, like sales tax.
welshwelsh
What's wrong with Amazon trying to make a political point?
Amazon is obviously trying to pressure the Trump admin into easing the tariffs. Why wouldn't they? Why shouldn't they? Amazon is as much a political actor as any other company, and they have a major stakeholder when it comes to tariff policy.
mrguyorama
>What's wrong with Amazon trying to make a political point?
Mainly with the concept of letting a ginormous multinational megacorp with more money and resources than 99.9% of the rest of America combined influence our political process is literally how we got here.
The CEO of Amazon is welcome to lobby as himself but letting an extremely already privileged legal fiction (an LLC) have more power over our society is just dumb.
Eextra953
I'm not sure why so many comments think this is a bad idea. I think it's a great idea and should be adopted by all retailers. We already do the same thing with sales tax. Tarriffs are close to sales tax in there effect to consumers so it makes sense to show it up front. It lets customers see just how much more they have to pay due to the, ever changing, tariffs.
Good for Amazon.
flutas
In a roundabout way it also lets you know what products are manufactured in countries other than China, allowing you to choose them over the Chinese equivalent.
beloch
It's apparently a partisan issue. Take a look at the White House's response.
> * White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she had discussed the Punchbowl News report with Trump, and his message about it was: "This is a hostile and political act by Amazon." * [1]
The Trump administration has expressed a clear expectation that businesses like Amazon should pretend tariffs are paid by foreign countries. Transparent pricing is now disloyal.
[1]https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/white-house...
enaaem
The cope I have been reading on the MAGA side is that now you can see which products are from America or not from China. The white House should have went with that message, but they can't stop being butt hurt all the time.
taytus
Just because the White House say it is a partisan issue, doesn’t make it one.
s1artibartfast
Here's a few good reasons that have been thrown out. First is that they're unlikely to implement it accurately, applying a percent to the retailers and Amazon's profit, instead of the cost of goods. Another is that it reveals a lot of business information about margins.
esotericimpl
[dead]
ChrisMarshallNY
I was just talking to a couple friends of mine, about this, yesterday. They run a medium-sized manufacturing business that has almost all their work done overseas.
Another friend of mine was just laid off, as a transportation broker, directly because of the tariffs.
The tariffs have the potential to drive tens of thousands of small- and medium businesses into bankruptcy, overnight.
I feel as if this was not well thought-out. Maybe megacorps, like Tesla, can weather it, but many smaller businesses have no buffer.
That said, the manufacturing imbalance and trade imbalance is a very real problem that needs to be solved. I just feel as if we are approaching it in a manner that is simplistic, and favors only very large corporations.
andrewflnr
> I feel as if this was not well thought-out.
No need to hedge. Anyone with their head on the right way around can see how much thought went into it.
bloudermilk
It’s as if these policies were created without any concern for the well being of SMBs and consumers.
sorcerer-mar
It is a literal stupid person calling the shots. He literally thinks trade deficits are the US "losing" or "giving away" money to foreign countries, and he believes (correctly, in a way) that we can tariff our way to perfect trade balance.
garciasn
s/SMB.*$/anyone./g
atoav
"Not well thought out"? This was the equivalent of putting on a blindfold and throwing random darts at a world map.
On top of that the reasons they gave are contradictory, because in the end the truth is the tariffs were based on the vibes one specific man had held since the 80s. However the world is very different since then.
Not even the numbers make sense. If the goal was to punish people with whom the US has a high trade deficit, why slap a 10% fee on those who don't have a trade deficit at all? This tells countries: "No matter what you do, we will abuse our position of power anyways" instead of telling them "If you behave we both will benefit".
But maybe that wasn't the reason, instead it was manufacturing? Then why on earth not pair tariffs with incentives and help for corporations who want to move their production lines to the US? With the current volatile climate in the US nobody is going to move anything, except maybe away from the US.
DrillShopper
> The tariffs have the potential to drive tens of thousands of small- and medium businesses into bankruptcy, overnight.
That is their goal - to drive out the small and medium businesses so that the president's donors can swoop in with private capital offers to enrich themselves.
sorcerer-mar
No it's not. He's just a very unintelligent person surrounded by sycophants. Trump almost certainly doesn't even have an ulterior motive here. He has loudly proclaimed for decades his belief that trade deficits are the same as a subsidy or giveaway to the other country.
DrillShopper
I never said it was explicitly Trump's goal, just that it was (with his knowing or not, and him not knowing is much more concerning) the goal of his administration (the people who really run the economic policy) here.
reverendsteveii
"This is hostile and political." --The President. No, Really.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/29/white-house-blasts-amazon-ov...
rsynnott
Surely he should be proud of his bigly beautiful tariffs, and happy to have them prominently displayed, that a grateful public might marvel at them.
Der_Einzige
And since now we have the ERS, I shouldn't have to pay my federal income taxes anymore, since Trump said he'd get rid of the IRS and abolish it!
wombat-man
I can't tell if they still, genuinely, just don't understand how tariffs work and how they are charged. But if they're lying... why? to what end?
People are going to notice when prices are jacked up or stores are empty.
reverendsteveii
The point of the tariffs is rolling them back when the entity being punished does what Trump wants them to do. This was revealed in the initial stutterstep rollout of tariffs against Canada and Mexico. They both gave him political victories on the border, and in exchange the tariffs were delayed.
Quit assuming he wants what he says he wants and start assuming he wants the obvious, easily-predictable consequences of his actions.
mrguyorama
If Fox News never tells them that increasing prices are Trump's fault, they will never turn on him. People need to stop treating his supporters as rational people just missing some information.
It's a classic cult of personality. They ignore reality as Trump demands.
There is no way out of this by insisting that they will naturally snap out of it. That's never been how cults of personality end.
neogodless
Technically Karoline Leavitt said it.
reverendsteveii
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.
pessimizer
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.
insane_dreamer
She speaks on behalf of the President.
pessimizer
I mean, it is a manufactured story that Amazon denies. It was obviously crafted as a hostile political act by whoever made it up (or exaggerated a random remark someone made.)
I don't understand your point. Am I supposed to be shocked that people could be politically hostile towards Trump? Am I supposed to be shocked that his press secretary accused Amazon of being politically hostile towards Trump? Is there a new "norm" of Presidents never accusing critics of being hostile or trying to score political points?
reverendsteveii
The denial from amazon is only half an hour old as of this writing, which means it was about 6 minutes old when you posted this. and again, as I had said plainly before you even joined this thread, the thing I want to discuss is politicians using the word 'political' as a pejorative. I think it's interesting how he seems to be redefining the term and taking advantage of everyone else's distaste for it in order to make what other people do "political" (conniving, backstabbing, and all sorts of other negative connotations) whereas what he does AS THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES is not "political".
jl6
Presumably they can determine this for items directly imported, but for all other cases (such as a made-in-the-USA product that is built using made-in-China tools, or from made-in-China components), surely the cost impact on the final product could be extremely complex to work out, if they even have access to that level of supply chain detail?
hippich
Last 2 or 3 years we use their AGL service. I am pretty sure a lot of their third party sellers are. So they will have exact information on custom duties paid.
conductr
If the product was made in US but used a dozen raw materials to create it, Amazon doesn’t know where you sourced them from or how much you paid for them or even how much of each your product consumed in a per unit basis.
SecretDreams
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.
cj
I think the GP is asking about “Assembled in the USA” products where individual components are imported from around the world.
Wouldn’t “custom duties paid” be on each individual component?
abirch
A lazy way to do this is to take the current price as the non tariff price and assume any increase in price is based on tariffs.
maxvisser
Some Amazon programmer tomorrow
priceIncrease := (newPrice - oldPrice) / oldPrice var trump_tariff bool
if priceIncrease > 1.0 { trump_tariff = true }
unwind
Please don't use if:s to assign boolean literals, just do it:
const trump_tariff = priceIncrease > 1.0
bee_rider
Seems novel and kinda “going out on a limb,” sort of unlikely for a big entity like Amazon, right?
I wonder if they will just allow their suppliers to add in an additional “my tariff costs” number, which the supplier can compute however they want and be responsible for. (This would be on top of the main tariff price, the one paid directly by Amazon, which of course they’ll have receipts for).
parrit
Then increase the price!
littlestymaar
That would also be quite a misleading way to do it.
acdha
I’m sure it would be off in some cases, but “quite misleading” seems like an exaggeration: the economy was steadily growing and there weren’t any major drivers of inflation other than Trump’s massive tax hike.
reverendsteveii
Let's POSIWID this for a second. Perfect accuracy isn't the goal here, nor does it meaningfully contribute to the goal. The goal is messaging, it's about drawing a line in consumers' brains between the price increases and Trump. If it were me I'd just take the pre-tariff price, work out a post-tariff price and then assign the blame for the difference between them to Trump. No one is gonna check up on this, and it has the narrative on its side. Even Trump's supporters acknowledge that his tariffs are gonna raise prices, they're just integrating that fact by saying it's for the greater good and it'll bring manufacturing back home and put a chicken in every garage and a car in every pot and all of that. Amazon just wants to hammer him on this because even after Lord Bezos bent the knee, donated tons of money and used his power to manipulate the media in favor of Trump Trump still went ahead with moves that will consolidate his own power but cost his nobles a ton of money.
dagaci
Surely they will have receipts for the tariffs paid…
stetrain
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 Company A and B and correctly show the price difference in the final product?
bdavisx
Yes, that would be complicated. EXCEPT most of what amazon sells is Company A in China makes product -> Company B imports and sells on amazon. That's easy to calculate.
dgfitz
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.
myrmidon
This doesn't help; e.g. if you buy sneakers made in the US, those might be affected by leather import tariffs, but Amazon is not gonna know by how much and manufacturers are gonna be cagey with exact numbers.
scotty79
They can put up "up to x" for products which provenience in not known. And if you want to bring it down you need to present 3rd party audit result about how much of your price comes from US.
TrackerFF
Cool, it is rare to see that kind of transparency. I live in a country with both tariffs / import taxes on a bunch of items, and a general VAT. VAT (25%) is the only thing you ever see as a consumer, and other taxes (like for exmaple 10.7% on clothes imported to my country) are hidden away by the stores.
I've been checking out some of the aliexpress / temu / etc. subreddits, and US consumers are losing their marbles over the new import duties. Most stores have now rolled out those on check-out.
largbae
Would this not reveal every importer's gross margin to its competitors? The tariff is only on the importer's "landed cost". If the tariff is itemized(and not just a made up number by the seller), then you can easily work out their gross profit margin and the price they are paying their OEM.
It seems like no seller would want this.
aaronbaugher
Yeah, it won't last. They'll decide it's too revealing, or too hard to calculate an actual number. People are throwing around all sorts of percentages, and none of them really mean anything because whatever the effect of tariffs is on a particular item, it's bundled up with the inflation that's been growing for years and everyone in the supply chain taking a bigger chunk because everyone else is. This is just performative.
SecretDreams
This is a fair point. Interesting topic since I think transparency to the end user on the effects of tariffs is also important.
alphabetting
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.
ericmay
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.
sorcerer-mar
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.
ericmay
It's a little difficult for me to make the point I want to make here because I don't disagree with you, but the usage of the word "brand" is not as descriptive as I'd like it to be.
If you're buying good copper cookware the manufacturer "brand" matters, they build a reputation for having quality products, ideally continue to make those quality products at a fair price, etc. and life is good.
But then there are brands and unfortunately when we use the term brand we wind up lumping together "high quality brands" with "cheap, useless dog shit products" and it can be difficult to differentiate. At least for me and my limited vocabulary.
trollbridge
I buy cheap things at Harbor Freight now instead of on Amazon because at least then I know I can return it if it breaks.
conductr
I find Amazon has the better return policy. HF has at times zero flexibility and I find I really have to pay attention to each item’s policy and weight the risk of failure (eg. A $5 hammer is low risk, $400 machine is too high risk). It’s not worth the mental math required while shopping. I only buy consumables there (HF) now, gloves, ropes, tarps, etc. Nothing with moving part, especially a motor. I’ve been left holding the bag on $400 items I I couldn’t even assemble because the bolt holes were out of alignment (obvious manufacturing defect) and they’ve refused to allow the return or force a boxing fee on me.
CamperBob2
No, the best way to avoid this kind of behavior is to refrain from incentivizing it with misguided, poorly-thought-out, and anticapitalistic trade policy.
Smuggling is the world's second-oldest profession. Trade finds a way.
lvl155
When are we going to realize this is a form of dumping by the Chinese? People love cheap goods but as QoL in China improves, they won’t be able to churn out cheap goods for long. That’s why CCP is hellbent on trying to monopolize global supply chain. In fact, I believe we are first slowly and then drastically headed toward global equilibrium in labor cost. We might be looking at significantly cheaper labor in the US and double or triple labor costs in China and India.
ZeroTalent
There is no more "as QoL in China improves."
The majority of parts of "Swiss Made" watches are made in China, utilizing a loophole that requires 60% of the watch's cost to be manufactured and assembled in Switzerland. So they make a rotor made out of gold in Switzerland, which accounts for 60% of the COGS of the watch, pop the rotor on the movement, and the sapphire glass on the watch, and it's "Swiss Made."
Best source, a rabbit hole: https://monochrome-watches.com/h-moser-cie-launches-swiss-ma...
Replicas are also manufactured in the same factories as "authentic" watches, but are fully assembled in China. (my personal insider anecdote)
"Investigators who work for Rolex and others say high-end fakes are “made in the same industrial parks and on cloned CNC machines”": https://www.businessinsider.com/how-counterfeit-rolexes-work...
"2025 “superfake” TAG Heuer Aquaracers used real Swiss Sellita movements inside Chinese-made cases—proof of parts leakage, if not identical factory floors": https://www.heddels.com/2025/03/spotting-a-superfake-4-real-...
rafram
> There is no more "as QoL in China improves."
You start with this, but then the rest of your comment is totally unrelated. Could you elaborate?
scarface_74
From your citations
> What kind of idiot US seller hasn’t had their Chinese factory also write in a lower value on the import invoice?
Why do people on X think Americans don’t cheat the system too?
xtiansimon
Interesting.
AliExpress added this last week as a line item cost during checkout.
I took up a new hobby in 2021 and was buying materials from Amazon and eBay. There’s more transparency on eBay for products shipped directly from China. As a result I stated to realize when shopping on Amazon (and not buying a known Branded Manufacturer, but choosing same category product at lower price) I was buying the exact same low quality Chinese products on Amazon as I was buying on eBay and paying more. Of course, Amazon has better customer service and more consistent return policies compared to eBay stores. There’s benefits for the price, but the products are the same.
Then I discovered AliExpress, and found the same products I was buying on eBay, and Amazon, but my costs were even less. Downside was longer shipping times, and (effectively) no returns.
Last week I looked to buy more materials at AliExpress, and found the line item tariff cost had doubled the price.
I think you see the differences I’m highlighting here are cost and customer service—ALL for the SAME products.
I’m bummed my hobby costs are going up for the same quality products. I’m bummed the sub-800$ exemption is going away.
I believe AliExpress is the Chinese equivalent of eBay. Everybody is buying from the wholesale marketplace, Alibaba. If an Amazon seller is adding tariffs, then I think they’re an AliExpress seller on the Amazon platform.
hypeatei
I'm surprised they're able to calculate all of this properly in the first place. The U.S. doesn't have government personnel at the ports so the importer self reports. There isn't a central system to administer these tariffs either so during chaotic moments, you go based off the tweet of the hour I guess.
venusenvy47
I'm friends with someone who works for a logistics company, and collecting the tariff from each company, and sending to the government, is part of the service they provide. It actually wasn't a complicated part of their business until a couple months ago, because of how little that aspect would change. But now their compliance teams have to read the Federal Register every day to keep up. They are getting stuck in the middle of this, because they quote the delivery costs to the company, but by the time the shipment arrives, the tariff has suddenly risen and then the company complains "that is not the cost you quoted us".
DennisP
Or you start bribing customs officials not to spot-check you, because when the policy's so chaotic it's the only way you can do business.
aaronbaugher
They're not able to. They're pulling numbers out of their asses, like everyone is right now.
Technetium
News sure moves fast... "Amazon denies it planned to disclose cost of US tariffs on its website" - April 29, 2025 12:01 PM EDT: [1]
"Trump complained to Bezos before Amazon said it scrapped idea to display tariff cost" - April 29 2025 9:01 AM EDT: [2]
"Amazon denies tariff pricing plan after White House calls it "hostile and political"" - April 29, 2025 12:01 PM EDT: [3]
[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/white-house... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/29/white-house-blasts-amazon-ov... [3] https://www.axios.com/2025/04/29/tariffs-amazon-prime-day-se...
"Amazon says it never considered listing import charges on main site - report"
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cpvrrre4zlkt?post=asset%3A0240...