How Do You Explain the Price Hike?

If you blame it on the tariffs, do you sound political? If you don’t blame it on the tariffs, do you risk seeming opportunistic?

Good Morning!

Here are today’s highlights:

• A growing number of restaurants are turning to AI bots to answer the phones.

• We planned for tariffs, but we didn’t plan for a full-on trade war, says the founder of a company that sells products for children with special needs.

• One toy mogul is advocating for a three-year tariff reprieve that would let U.S. toy manufacturers catch up instead of going out of business.

• Clarence O. Smith convinced mainstream advertisers that Black women were a viable market.

PRICING

The tariffs have forced America’s businesses into a pricing experiment: “Although big, name-brand American companies are most likely to incur the administration’s wrath over displaying tariff surcharges, other businesses have tough choices to make on how to go about raising prices. The result is a choose-your-own-adventure exercise in managing public perception. Screenshots of the checkout page of the online clothing company Triangl went viral for the astronomical ‘duties’ surcharge. Temu, a Chinese e-commerce giant, added import charges to certain products on its site.”

• “Meanwhile, some business leaders aren’t mincing words. Jolie Skin Co, an American shower-filter brand, told The Information that a ‘Trump liberation tariff’ line will be added to checkout pages. ‘Technically, WE are not raising our prices,’ the company’s CEO and founder, Ryan Babenzien, wrote on LinkedIn. ‘We think transparency is the way to go here, and I am giving Trump full credit for his decision.’”

• “But pointing a finger at tariffs can also help shift blame. Increasing prices without any clear explanation risks appearing opportunistic, Mike Michalowicz, a small-business expert, told me. All it takes is for some businesses to get caught profiteering before ‘the customer becomes suspect of not just them but of everybody.’”

• “If some companies fear appearing opportunistic, others are trying to cash in while they still can. Marketing 101 teaches you to distinguish your company from your competitors, and Business 101 says to move inventory before the economy goes kaput. What better way to do both than to slash prices when everybody else is raising them? ‘Pre-tariff’ sales are cropping up at furniture companies, fashion retailers, and carmakers. Their underlying message: Get it before you can’t afford it.” READ MORE