At least some small businesses in Durango area say they have been feeling the effects of President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Congress’ newly introduced Small Business Relief Act could help them.
Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper co-introduced the Small Business Relief Act on Sept. 11. The bill would exempt all small businesses – defined as fewer than 500 employees – from tariffs now in place. It would also refund those that have already paid, under certain tariff programs, once the bill is enacted. That refund window would be 90 days after enactment.
“Small businesses shouldn’t be collateral damage in Trump’s reckless and illegal trade war,” Hickenlooper said in a news release. “As a former small business owner who’s met with Colorado entrepreneurs, I know these senseless tariffs are crushing entrepreneurs and increasing prices across the board. Small businesses deserve the chance to weather this storm.”
Deborah Demme, owner of There’s No Place Like Home, a clothing, jewelry and accessories shop, has seen tariff increases from gift companies abroad. Though not every vendor of hers has been affected, several have attached surcharges.
“Some of my vendors have raised their prices and some of my vendors have attached a surcharge onto my invoices,” she said. “And the most recent one was kind of astounding. It was from a company that I deal with in England, and it’s a … greeting card line.”
Demme’s order totaled $270 and the company attached a $57 surcharge. In response, she raised the prices of the cards from $5 to $6. Demme also saw surcharges from China and Germany.
“What I have to figure out is how much I can raise the price before it becomes undoable,” she said. “Before my customers start to think, ‘Ooh that really changed, that’s really gone up.’ I don’t want it to be too noticeable. The card situation is just one.”
Demme said she might not buy from the vendor from England again. However, she continues to be optimistic about the future and is trying to find new lines that are made in the U.S.
“It’s not necessarily the easiest thing to do to just all of the sudden not carry things from other countries,” she said. “I’ve had the store for 20 years, and I’m going to just keep on going and try and ride the wave here.”
Taylor Ripp, CEO and co-founder of Outpost Campers, an RV-manufacturing company, spoke with The Durango Herald about the impacts of tariffs and price increases in April and again in October.
In April, the worry was not on price increases but on supply chain shortages. Outpost Campers had to “panic-buy” materials in order to secure inventory ahead of increases and shortages to build campers that customers had already ordered, which was a strain on cash reserves, Ripp said. Prices on materials seem to have stabilized in the last two to three months, he said.
While the campers are manufactured in the U.S. – and Ripp does not directly import from overseas – the company works with suppliers from places like China, Europe and Canada.
For example, Outpost Campers orders high-end door and window products from China that are not made in the U.S.
“It’s important for people to understand how global everything in their life is,” he said. “I can look at our camper and see things that come from 10 different countries. And our camper is ultimately manufactured in the United States, it’s just we’ve got materials that come from all over the world.”
Ripp said he remains optimistic and is reassured by how vendors have kept working with them and have tried to absorb as much of the costs as possible, which has been a good relationship-builder.
Evan Schertz owns Maria’s Bookshop, which opened 41 years ago. He said the store is rarely buying directly from foreign companies and mostly buys from publishers or distributors based in the U.S., who are the ones doing the importing.
Included in Trump’s list of exempted products released in April, print books and children’s picture books qualify as “informational materials.”
“I just think it’s interesting and a little bit reassuring that books as a product are exempt globally from tariffs under all these new rules because they’re educational,” he said.
However, Schertz said the ingredients that go into making a book – such as paper and printing – are becoming more expensive, in part from the increased tariffs. A majority of paper imports come from Canada.
He has seen increased wholesale costs when buying products for the store and has raised prices accordingly, taking into account the resale margin to make a product worth having in the store.
Increased prices have made it harder to plan for the future of Maria’s Bookshop, said Schertz, and the buying team can’t plan ahead. They want to have as little stuff in the store as possible so they are not storing extra products. He said it might make more sense to buy more products ahead of time because prices could go up by the time it comes to make the next order.
“Nobody actually knows what the future is going to hold – it’s just so unpredictable,” he said. “It’s so hard to plan ahead when you just don’t know what sort of policy decisions are going to be made six months from now that might have an impact not just on our expenses but also just on the consumer buying behavior.”
Ripp echoed that price increases have made it more difficult to plan ahead when no one knows what the policy will be in a month, a year or two years from now.
“Supply chains for small businesses like ours, especially small manufacturers, are very complex and take years to develop,” he said. “More than anything, what a business owner like me wants is some level of certainty so we can make decisions today that are two-, three-, four-, five-year decisions. … It’s really hard for us to adapt our manufacturing production line to all these changes in policy.”
Demme said it would be “fabulous” if the Small Business Relief Act passed, though she is not counting on it and thinks it is ambitious. She said she doesn’t know what else can be done to help small businesses besides the kind of legislation being proposed by Hickenlooper.
“I would definitely encourage lawmakers to support that kind of a bill to help small business people, not only in our community but in the country,” she said. “I can’t say that for all of the stores in Durango, but I’m certainly not getting rich owning a retail store and it’s just harder to make a profit.”
Abigail Hatting is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a senior at American University in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at ahatting@durangoherald.com.
