Retailers and E-Commerce Companies Overwhelmingly Say Trump's Tariffs Bad for Business

FEATURED IMAGE | Source: Teamblind Inc.

Last Monday, President Trump escalated his trade war with China by imposing 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion worth of consumer products. The $200 billion comes on top of $50 billion worth of goods that were taxed beginning in June. The tariffs are meant to pressure Beijing to change its unfair trade practices, including intellectual property theft, that hurt American businesses. Beijing has denied the Trump administration’s claims of unfair practices and has retaliated by imposing its own taxes on $60 billion worth of U.S. products.

The Trump administration’s new tariffs are expected to increase costs for U.S. consumers. Businesses will be affected too, including retail and e-commerce companies, which have increasingly taken advantage of China’s cheaper manufacturing and assembly costs. Retailers warn that new tariffs on Chinese goods will “boomerang back to harm U.S. families and workers.” Nearly 300 retailers, including Walmart, Target, Gap, Macy’s, and Kohl’s, signed a letter that strongly opposes the tariffs. In a press release, National Retail Federation CEO Matthew Shay said, “With these latest tariffs, many hardworking Americans will soon wonder why their shopping bills are higher and their budgets feel stretched.”

To find out how employees in retail and e-commerce feel, we surveyed users on Blind who work in the industry. From September 19 through 25, we asked users to answer “Yes” or “No” to the following question: “Are tariffs on Chinese goods good for business?” Out of 1,525 retail and e-commerce employees, 81.2 percent of them replied “No.”Employees from 35 retail and e-commerce companies participated in the survey, including those from Walmart, Target, Kohl’s, Macy’s, Amazon, eBay, Apple, Wayfair, Overstock.com, Nike, Gap, Nordstrom, and Costco.

We also broke down the survey responses to see company-specific results for Amazon, eBay, Apple, and Walmart – the top four U.S. companies ranked by Retail Ecommerce Sales Share. The majority of survey participants from all four companies said the tariffs won’t be good for business. Walmart / Jet.com employees lean most heavily towards this sentiment with more than 83 percent.

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What do you think of the results? Tweet us @teamBlindapp and let us know.