[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.

[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.

[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.

[kangda123]

Uncertainty costs money. It's normal to require extra pay for extra risk.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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)

[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.

[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.

[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

[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

[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.

[floxy]

>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.

Is there a good way to account for the loss of customers from this practice? I have certainly opted out of restaurants with extra fees.

[dboreham]

Perhaps whoever decided to impose massive sales taxes (tariffs) should have thought of that?

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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).

[ceejayoz]

> Why just the tariffs, unless Amazon is trying to make a political point?

Why would they not want to make this political point?

[bathtub365]

This seems in line with other government taxes on goods that the consumer ends up paying, like sales tax.

[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.

[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.