Tag Archives: tariffs

Prepare for rising toy prices. In a statement to CNBC Hasbro said this today:

“These measures, if they go through, will substantially impact American consumers, including their ability to gift quality toys to their children during the holidays,” Hasbro told CNBC Friday. “If the proposed tariffs are put in place, Hasbro will have no choice but to pass along the increased costs to our U.S. customers by pricing our products to address the tariffs.”

Yesterday, it was announced that a new 10% tariff will be imposed on an addtional $300 billion worth of imported goods from China. September, when the new tariffs will come into effect, is a very important month for shipping toys to the US for the holiday season. It remains to be seen if the 10% tariff will already affect toys sold on Triple Force Friday or if only future waves will be affected.

Will you buy the same number of releases as before if all Star Wars toys cost 10% more? TVC could be $13.99 or even $14.99, TBS could be $21.99. We will inform you as soon as Hasbro will release more concrete info on future pricing of Star Wars toys. 67% of Hasbro’s toys are still made in China. There are ongoing efforts to shift production to countries with cheaper labor, like Vietnam or India.

CNBC has the story. It also goes into detail about what US toy companies are affected the most. Funko has already announced they will raise prices, however, by the end of the year up to 70% of their products will already be made outside China. Mattel may face serious problems, contrary to Hasbro, who don’t actually own the factories and can outsource production to any other country somewhat more easily, Mattel owns about 50% of the factories, so it’s much more costly to move production. However, most Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels toy cars are manufactured outside of China, and these are the two most important Mattel brands.

When you comment please leave out politics, or names of politicians (or nicknames of politicians), just discuss what rising prices would mean for you and your collecting habits. We will delete posts that are off topic.

The Trump Administration has announced to suspend the planned tariffs for “list 4” goods made in China – at least for the time being. Tariffs would have been 25% and “List 4” goods would have included toys and video games (including consoles). Several representatives of the toy industry made trips to Washington in recent times in order to change the opinion of President Trump. It seems to have worked for now. So fans of action figures or video games and consoles can relax a bit. Star Wars action figures will not get more expensive any time soon, or at least not because of tariffs.
Read the full story on io9.

The USA and China are currently engaged in a trade war, it’s not the taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems that is in question, the US administration is of the opinion that China is taking unfair advantage of free trade, so more and more imported goods from China are subject to trade tariffs. What would happen should the US administration impose a 25% tariff on virtually anything produced in China? Including toys? How would and could Hasbro react? What effects would consumers feel and what scenarios are there? Click through for details!

President Trump meeting Xi Jinping in China in 2017

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