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Tariff turbulence buffets Metro Detroit’s small retailers

Posted By: Royal Oak Daily Tribune/Detroit News on June 3, 2025.  For more information, please click here to read the source article.

As the legal battle over President Donald Trump’s tariffs heats up, small and independent businesses in Metro Detroit are cautiously watching and waiting, hoping for some clarity from a landscape that keeps changing.

The entrepreneurs have gone through a rollercoaster of emotions as Trump has ordered tariffs, paused some and scaled back others, and courts have ruled to suspend or allow the levies.

“I guess the bottom line is we can’t trust anything, making planning completely impossible,” said Mary Liz Curtin, co-owner of Leon & Lulu, a lifestyle store in Clawson. “And even if it changes, it changes back, or it re-changes or it flips on its head.”

A federal ruling halted some of the tariffs last week, before the U.S. Court of Appeals decided the following day that the levies could stay in place while legal proceedings play out. It’s the uncertainty that entrepreneurs say is the hardest part.

“I think people are still kind of holding their breath,” said Elle Dare, owner of Genuine Toys in Plymouth. “It’s such a crazy ride. We aren’t really sure what to do. Definitely uncertainty and frustrating. We just want an answer of what’s going on and have it be the answer.”

‘Would be a big win’

Tariffs moved front and center for small business owners in April after Trump declared “Liberation Day” by ordering “reciprocal” tariffs on many U.S. trading partners, citing what he described as “chronic trade abuses.”

The U.S. tariff on China reached 145% before a 90-day pause in May brought it down to 30%. Last week, the Court of International Trade ruled that Trump did not have the legal authority to impose the reciprocal tariffs under the emergency powers he cited. The next day, the U.S. Court of Appeals allowed the tariffs to remain in place for now as the White House challenges the ruling.

Small businesses are hoping that the trade court’s ruling prevails, but are wary of another court overturning the ruling, said Colin Grabow, associate director at the libertarian Cato Institute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies.

He noted that even large corporations are being impacted. Walmart has already warned customers that prices will increase on a variety of goods, including produce, clothing and car seats, because of the tariffs.

“No doubt it would be a big win for small businesses if the tariffs are significantly pared back,” Grabow said. “If even Walmart is being forced to raise prices, then there’s little doubt that small businesses — without the resources of a major retailer like Walmart — will be hard pressed to manage the tariffs.”

The Michigan Retailers Association has found that many independent retailers are stuck in “wait-and-see mode” during tariff talks, said Vic Veda, vice president of communications for the organization, which represents 5,000 members and 15,000 stores and websites across the state. He indicated it would be beneficial for them if the trade court’s ruling is ultimately upheld.

“We are cautiously optimistic that this ruling will protect small businesses from the uncertainty around how these tariffs are applied and when,” Veda said. “Local retailers have expressed that tariffs and the threat of tariffs would negatively impact their businesses, sharing that beyond the impacts on costs, the uncertainty and inconsistencies in tariffs have created significant administrative burdens on their businesses.”

A Michigan Retailers Association survey released in mid-May found that more than 60% of Michigan businesses import goods from other countries. The top sources were China, Canada and Mexico, followed by Vietnam, India, Italy, Spain and France. About 36% of respondents said they don’t import goods.

About two-thirds of retailers said they’ve had to raise prices due to the tariffs, with 16.7% reporting “significant increases.” The rest said their prices haven’t changed yet.

The survey also found 69.4% of retailers said the tariffs will hurt their business during the next three to six months, with 69% stating those negative impacts will extend to 6 to 12 months. Another 24.7% reported that tariffs will have no impact on their business in the next three to six months, while 5.9% believe tariffs will have a positive effect during that timeframe.

Retailers that focus on vintage, thrifted, handmade or locally made goods are less affected, Veda said: “These types of retailers are not importing goods to sell, so they’re less impacted from a cost standpoint. They’re also using the pricing pressures on other businesses as an opportunity to drive more foot traffic to their stores.”

How retailers are coping

At Genuine Toys in Plymouth, Dare said many of her vendors are U.S.-based but manufacture toys in China. Some stopped production altogether as they braced for increased tariffs.

One shipment of origami products Dare ordered in late April was hit with increased tariffs during shipment, hiking the price per set from $15 to $40. She canceled the order when the option was offered.

“If it went up $1, our customers could handle that,” she said. “But when you’re talking about such a huge percentage, it’s not even feasible.”

Dare said she receives regular email updates from toy companies about price increases and availability. The updates have become so frequent that she often ignores them unless she’s planning to place an order.

“I don’t really even look at them anymore,” she said. “I’m like, well, if I do the order, let me know if there’s price increases and I’ll decide.”

At Leon & Lulu, Curtin scrambled to place an order Friday for soaps and lotions before the vendor implemented a 25% price increase.

Curtin said she began placing orders earlier this year on items she hopes to receive this summer. She said that even if tariffs were lifted immediately, the supply chain has already been strained.

“It’s June,” she said. “We should be starting to receive some of our Christmas ornaments and that kind of stuff. Some of our vendors haven’t got the stuff that we ordered that they should have processed in April and May to get to their stores in July, August and September.”

urtin initially focused on items already in stock within the United States. She said Christmas ornaments were among the items most impacted.

“We’ve called every vendor to find out what they have in stock and see what we could buy for immediate delivery,” she said. “We’re lucky, because we have a warehouse and we have the money and the room to start buying things four months ahead of when we want them. We’ve done the same thing with a lot of the small things — art supplies, crayons and pens, and journals and anything that’s made offshore we’re stocking up on now because we just didn’t know what to do. So we led with our pocketbooks.”

Curtin said her store has always aimed to purchase and stock U.S.-made products.

“Our upholstery is made in the United States, but they use all of them in the sinuous coils that go in the sofas,” she said. “Aluminum gets hit with a tariff, we have trouble with sofa prices. A lot of the fabric is from offshore, even though it’s an American product. It’s easy to say ‘shop American,’ but we have to remember that we are now a global society. And even if it’s an American product, parts of the parts — a lot of it — come from someplace else.”

She added: “For us, anyway, and for many independent businesses, there is no untapped well of American product. We’ve been tapping that for years because we’ve all been committed to it. There’s not a lot of stuff out there that we don’t know about.”

Reading the tariff tea leaves

Katrina Anderson, owner of Detroit-based CommodiTeas, has been following trade and tariff developments closely. Her tea business depends not only on imported tea leaves but also on teacups and fine china.

“Uncertainty is difficult for someone in my shoes,” she said, adding that importing remains non-negotiable.

“Even the growers that are here in the U.S., they cannot keep up with the demand,” she said. “Tea is a $14 billion industry in the U.S. alone. We can’t cover that here. So I’m forced to deal with whatever tariffs and international trade conversations are happening.”

Anderson said she began evaluating her inventory in January, and by March, she had placed an order to lessen the impact of tariffs. With levies in place, she said she had to reevaluate her prices for the first time in years and increased them 20% across the board to match hikes from suppliers.

“Because we had not raised our prices since 2020, we were able to go up nominally on our cost instantly,” she said. “But again, we’ll have to re-investigate that. Take a hard look again, at the end of the quarter, quarter four, going into Christmastime, see what everything looks like based on our current inventory. But we will not raise prices in anticipation.”

Even with the increase, Anderson said her prices remain competitive.

“Because we were underpriced compared to a lot of the going rates, it still keeps us very marketable,” she said. “We’re still way less than some of the brands that people are choosing to buy in grocery stores. So we’re still fine. It hurt my heart to be forced into raising prices. That’s not what we anticipated.”

While the tea leaves will likely continue to be imported, Anderson said she is collaborating with Michigan farmers and the Department of Agriculture to source fruits, herbs and other ingredients locally for her signature blends.

“We’re in current conversations to make sure that when it is time for me to restock, that those cherries and strawberries, that chamomile is coming from a Michigan farm,” she said. “And that means the world to me. So some good has come out of it. It’s caused me to kind of shift and really think a hard, critical thought about how I do my business and what kind of model I’ve set up bringing that farm-to-cup flavor to CommodiTeas. ”

Overall, Anderson hopes the legal battle over the tariffs ends with them being reversed.

“It allows me to continue putting tea products at an accessible price,” she said. “That’s part of our mission — to bring high-quality tea to places that don’t have access to fresh food. We can’t price ourselves out of the market.”