Comment by susiecambria

I mostly research and analyze retro hardware as a hobby, most of which was made in Japan. All of my research acquisitions at least doubled in price this month, and quite a few sellers have decided to stop shipping to me entirely until the tarrif situation gets sorted.

These are 40+ year old consoles and accessories that are no longer being produced anywhere, certainly not in the United States. There will not be a factory built for these items, they're not in high demand. They just got way more expensive.

I personally buy things from abroad relatively regularly. Few times a year. Just bought a keyboard from Taiwan and stocked up on Japanese tea in preparation for this. Plenty of things come from abroad though even if you’re not searching it out. Of course there’s SHEIN, temu, and Alibaba but even Amazon has a good percentage of things that come from abroad. It’s kinda hidden but it’s seamless so until now it was hard to tell.

> I very rarely buy directly from abroad and that is by design

A lot of bigger Canadian sellers identify with a US location as they use a shipping service that trucks things over the border it's "received" by USPS in 1-2 business days. So they get away with it as long as they don't over-promise handling/delivery times.

You can save a lot of money on random stuff from Temu/Aliexpress compared to Amazon. In my experience, often times going to be the same exact item.

Bags, odds and ends around the house, component assortments, screw assortments, and some tools (with careful judgement).

Sometimes the difference is only 1/3rd the cost, but I’ve had some items be 1/20th the cost by removing Amazon and whichever third party seller.

It's niche, but this is devastating the miniature wargaming industry, which is heavily based on small firms in the UK.

For a book series that I’m a fan of, the biggest merch seller (eg. embroidered hoodies, shirts) is based in Canada and ships directly. With these changes, she’s just having to shut the store down entirely because she’d have to have prices triple or quadruple.

I buy wool sweaters from Europe. I don’t know of US equivalents to what I buy, and I doubt they’d be as cheap if I did find them, even with (expensive) shipping from Britain and Nordic countries.

I bought a linen sheet from Lithuania this year. I couldn’t find any in the US that weren’t just similar probably-imported-from-Lithuania-or-Italy foreign ones marked way up, or that didn’t set off my “this is low-quality bullshit sold at a premium” alarms.

I don’t know of a US equivalents to Dent’s Gloves. Not at the same price/quality combo, in those styles.

Raber Garbage Mitts from Canada. Dunno of US equivalents.

Last time I ordered Meermin shoes they shipped from Spain. They have or had some presence in NY too, but Spain’s where they shipped from.

If you want equestrian leather shoes, I dunno of anywhere but places that ship from Spain and Portugal that won’t empty your bank account for them.

Western riding shoes (“cowboy boots”), best bang for your buck by a long shot will probably come straight from Mexico. Or maybe Argentina.

Best bargains in decent hats I know come straight from Canada, the EU/Britain, Mexico, or Australia.

[edit] OK, so then what do I buy that’s made in America? Red Wing boots, Darn Tough socks, Rancourt and Company for loafers and mocs and such, Pendleton wool blankets and shirts (the cloth’s made in the US, anyway, though the sewing’s usually elsewhere) and a bunch of other MIUSA (and some Canadian and Italian) clothes but I only buy them used because I don’t make FAANG or finance tier wages (stuff like Sid Mashburn, made in NYC) so I’m not actually giving those companies money.

Most items on Amazon were until recently cheaper on Aliexpress (usually by 20-40%, but sometimes by 80%). The only exceptions were high volume non-Chinese-manufactured consumer goods, and food. This is where regular Americans might be affected, if they were buying clothes on Temu or whatever.

For me, most items on McMaster-Carr have Chinese equivalents available for 1/10th the price. This goes for many other things which are very "B2B" in the US but commonly sold to the public in other markets (PCBs, solar panels, power supplies, etc.). The quality might not be as good but a lot weekend projects were made viable by cutting out the middle man and/or cheap access to a larger market. (You can find some of this stuff eBay as well, at a moderate premium. Until recently most of it was shipped from China but there are plenty of importers with US warehouses on there as well.)

err, things like Etsy and other crafter-sized companies, including antiques and other things. Don't know whether used books will be affected as I've not bought any recently. E-stores like Amazon or LL Bean or others at scale might/will have difficulty servicing customers. And all the gifts coming from non-US residents at this point will be emails.

Not American nor stuck in America, but I recently bought a simple kit for building your own clock from a ton of basic chips and resistors (that crappy one Big Clive showed off), for about a dollar.

The thing that surprised me most was how on point the shipping emails have been. The kit itself is worth about a dollar and was great for my 8 year old to practice soldering. Though if I skim the Temu site, it’s like 98% absolute trash.