Will Tariffs Affect Holiday Shopping?

ANNEMARIE: This is death by a thousand cuts.

CHRISTINE: Okay.

ANNEMARIE: It may be a couple dollars here, a couple dollars there. As you’re shopping, you may actually not notice, and then when you think about how much you’ve spent in the cumulative, you’re like, “Where did all that go?”

CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.

CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell.

ROSIE: I’m Rosie Guerin, and you’re listening to The Wirecutter Show.

CHRISTINE: Rosie.

CHRISTINE: It’s just us in the studio today.

ROSIE: Flying solo.

CHRISTINE: We are flying solo without Caira, and I think she would actually love this conversation because we are talking about deals today, holiday deals.

CHRISTINE: It’s November. A lot of people are probably thinking about their, or starting to think about their holiday shopping. Are you a pre-planner for shopping? Do you shop ahead of time or do you wait kind of closer to the holidays?

ROSIE: I am a mix. I’m a maverick. I sort of can’t be pinned down. No, I do like keeping lists throughout the year, but there is inevitably that moment where I’m panicked because it’s two weeks out and I haven’t gotten through the list.

CHRISTINE: Yeah, I’ve been there. Yeah. I tend to do something similar. I’ll keep some lists. I am not historically a big Black Friday shopper. That said, this year, I do have a list of things that I’m looking for for my kids that I have been looking for some deals on. So I think this is a great time for us to talk with somebody who really knows a lot about deals, and what to expect this year and I think it’s going to be a little bit different than it has been in years past.

ROSIE: Yeah, I think that’s probably true. We’ve done two episodes on this show within the last year specifically about tariffs and their connection to consumer product pricing, and that’s been based on Wirecutter journalists who are trying to get to the bottom of this question, will tariffs affect the prices of the things I want and I need to buy? And if so, how? Those conversations kind of speculated how this holiday shopping season might be affected, but now it’s upon us. So I think it’s time to really look at where we’re at and what the next month and a half is going to look like.

CHRISTINE: Right after the break, we’re going to talk with Annemarie Conte. She’s a deputy editor here at Wirecutter, and she used to run our deals team and now reports on a variety of subjects, from answering reader questions in our Ask Wirecutter column, to figuring out why pencil erasers are so bad. You need to look at this series she did.

ROSIE: It’s such a good piece.

CHRISTINE: It’s really great. And her most recent piece is all about what to expect during this time with tariffs. It’s called Wirecutter’s Guide to Navigating Tariffs This Holiday Season, and I think that’s really the crux of what we’re going to talk about today.

ROSIE: That’s right. We’re going to break down some of the product categories where Anne-Marie has seen the most price volatility, and talk about shopping strategies that you might want to consider heading into the holidays this year. So after the break, Annemarie Conte. Be right back.

ROSIE: Welcome back. We are officially into the holiday shopping season, and Black Friday in particular is a time many of us are looking for deals. This year, what it looks like is a little bit different, largely because of how tariffs are impacting product prices. Our guest today is deputy Editor at Wirecutter, Annemarie Conte. We’re talking about her newest article, Wirecutter Guide to Navigating Tariffs This Holiday Season.

CHRISTINE: Annemarie, welcome back.

ANNEMARIE: Oh, I’m so excited to be here.

CHRISTINE: It’s great to have you. I always love it when you’re on the show.

ROSIE: Annemarie, before we jump in to the nitty-gritty on tariffs and shopping this season, I want to know, this reporting specifically might not be everyone’s cup of tea. You have delved deep into it with both feet. Talk about your background a little bit and why this doesn’t put you to sleep.

ANNEMARIE: Rosie, I am deeply shocked that not everyone is as excited about tariffs as I am. I’m a massive cheapskate, right? And so I definitely grew up in a household where value was really important to us. And so when I came to Wirecutter and money and value and deals is very inherent to who I am, and it’s inherent to Wirecutter. We really want people to never regret their purchases and to get the most for their money. And that doesn’t necessarily only mean spending the least amount possible. You can indulge and splurge on things, but you have to be smart about it. And so this is the stuff that gets me really jazzed, and what I don’t like is people overpaying for something or feeling like they’ve been hoodwinked. the best feeling is feeling like you got something that’s really great, really useful for a really good price.

CHRISTINE: Back in June, you joined us on the show to talk about this deals tracking project that you and the deals team have been working on where you tracked 40 Wirecutter picks. And at that point, you had been tracking those prices for about two months, right? And now you’ve been tracking them for almost six months, the same products. In June, the story was not much has changed, but there might be some changes coming down the pike. Where are we at now?

ANNEMARIE: This was a real surprise. It’s changed both a lot and a little. Broadly, prices haven’t moved as much as we thought they would, and we’ve seen the peaks and the valleys. Some companies were able to get exceptions. So Apple, they haven’t had to increase their prices because they got exemptions to the tariffs, but if they don’t get extended, those prices might go up. So we are still in this position of a little bit of wait and see. Things have changed individually, but not necessarily broadly.

ROSIE: And so when you did that tracking, when the deals team did that tracking, you were looking at a diverse array of products, right? These were things across multiple product categories.

ANNEMARIE: Yeah, and we really wanted to pick things that you would buy frequently, and larger purchases. So we did have things like a washer dryer in there, and then we also had baby kid products like car seats. Those have increased. We were just picking what we thought was best at the time. And so it was emblematic of someone’s daily life, but not necessarily of what would be affected by tariffs, because we didn’t really know at that point.

ROSIE: Got it.

CHRISTINE: But you’re still tracking those same 40 products?

ANNEMARIE: Yes.

CHRISTINE: And so it’s been about six months now since you’ve been tracking them.

ANNEMARIE: Yep. And so the baby kid products have increased a bit, and anything made with steel, the tariffs have hit that industry pretty hard, but mostly we’re seeing normal price fluctuations and deal pricing. That’s the other thing that I think people need to know is that prices fluctuate normally anyway depending on the deal cycle or depending on the time of year. We are not seeing too many aberrations around that.

CHRISTINE: Do you think the average shopper is going to get online this year or go into a brick and mortar store and go shopping and be sticker-shocked by prices they’re seeing? Or do you think it’s kind of sort of a little bump?

ANNEMARIE: This is death by a thousand cuts. It may be a couple dollars here, a couple dollars there. As you’re shopping, you may actually not notice, and then when you think about how much you’ve spent in the cumulative, you’re like, “Where did all that go?” I think that’s why the average person hasn’t quite seen those increases that we’ve been seeing because we look at this stuff every single day of the year. But on some items, things have gotten significantly more expensive. The actually really interesting thing is one of the sources that I interviewed told me that initially when the tariffs were announced, people were what they called trading down. So they were buying less expensive products, but that leveled out as the economy wasn’t necessarily as bad as everyone thought it was going to be. I think people were sort of girding themselves at the beginning and then things leveled out. Now we’re not talking groceries, we’re not talking about things like that. I think people are really seeing the sticker shop there.

CHRISTINE: Yeah, that’s for sure.

ROSIE: Absolutely.

ANNEMARIE: We’re talking about everyday household products, gifts

ROSIE: So running it back, 101, I want to know how do tariffs directly affect product pricing? Maybe that isn’t 101.

ANNEMARIE: So President Trump campaigned on tariffs. On inauguration day, he said, “We’re instituting the tariffs.”

ROSIE: Right.

ANNEMARIE: Generally that is paid upon import, so it’s not paid by the manufacturer, it’s paid by us as things come into the country. There’s actually a couple of things going on here.

ROSIE: Okay.

ANNEMARIE: It’s not a 101.

ROSIE: Yeah.

ANNEMARIE: So depending on if it’s something that’s a component, that can increase the price because these manufacturers need to use these components in a larger product.

ROSIE: So like a chip or something like that?

ANNEMARIE: Yeah, steel coils in a mattress. But also there are tariffs on larger and more broad categories of goods as well. So it’s really hard to pin down. Things are changing, negotiations happen, and so that’s also been hard. These manufacturers and these brands have been unable to plan for the year. And so there are times when they say, “Our hand is forced, we had to increase prices.” But what they tried to do was import as much as they could before the tariffs took effect, hold them stateside, and sell through that stock. And so now we’re at a point where that stock has been sold down and what’s going to happen next is they’re going to have to import more goods and they have to figure out what makes sense. But it’s like throwing spaghetti at the wall

ROSIE: And that kind of stockpile move ideally was so that prices weren’t passed over to the consumer?

ANNEMARIE: Yes, and they were hoping that things would shift and change in a way that would allow them to just remain steady. In some cases that has worked, and in other cases, especially small businesses have had to say, “We just can’t absorb this cost anymore.” Larger manufacturers, larger brands are more able to spread the cost out across their products. But the interesting thing is that back in April, President Trump was quoted as saying, I’m paraphrasing, “The kids will have to have just two dolls this year.” And guess what? Mattel has had to increase the price on their dolls. That actually was prescient in a way. American Girl dolls, they had to increase them I think by $10 per doll,. So we’re seeing some larger jumps and some smaller jumps depending on the brand, the type of product, all of that.

ROSIE: And the reality is that even manufacturers who could stockpile, you can only stockpile for so long.

ANNEMARIE: Correct.

CHRISTINE: You mentioned earlier that you’ve seen prices increase on kids and baby gear, on things made with steel, so the mattress coils. What are some other examples of steel-made goods? Cars? Are we talking cars?

ANNEMARIE: Cars. The screw industry, you don’t think about it, and screws are in everything. And so-

ROSIE: Including humans.

ANNEMARIE: I have screws in my wrist.

ANNEMARIE: So that’s part of the challenge of this is that it’s impossible to predict. It’s impossible to know. And so some things can be absorbed and other things can’t. We’re also seeing right now gaming consoles, we’re expecting those to increase. So that is something that we think really should, if you’re going to buy a gaming console, you might want to buy it now because concerned it might get even more expensive.

CHRISTINE: What about other electronics, computers? Are we seeing any sort of movement in those categories?

ANNEMARIE: In some cases, so really interesting thing is that Kimber Streams, who does all of our Chromebook testing, actually removed our top pick and replaced it because it had jumped by a hundred dollars. That was not, as far as I know, it was not directly attributed to tariffs. A lot of this price increase is also due to general economics or trade or the value of the US dollar. Not every company is attributing things directly to tariffs, but what we do know, just because we can see it in our own price tracking, is that some things are getting more expensive. So that Chromebook pick in the scheme of all of our Chromebooks no longer felt like the best value, and so they replaced it with something that felt like a better value.

ROSIE: So thinking about these categories, the things that contain steel, the screw industry, laptops, headphones, how do you recommend shopping?

ANNEMARIE: Yeah, with things like electronics, our teams really believe that you generally don’t need the absolute latest bells and whistles. Often the improvements are incremental, and so for the majority of people, earlier edition tech is fine. And the thing that’s really ironic is that older tech should be less expensive. Sometimes that’s not actually the case. Sometimes this tech is getting more expensive. Previous versions of laptops, headphones, things like that, you can usually get away with last year’s version and it’s going to be great. It’s going to totally work for you. We also do recommend some refurbished items too. That’s absolutely a way to go. And there’s just a variety of ways that you can shop and frame your thinking about shopping for Christmas gifts or Hanukkah gifts or any general holiday gifts that I think helps ensure that you’re not panicking, because we never want you to panic.

CHRISTINE: Just to recap what we’ve talked about so far, Annemarie, tariff pricing is probably going to impact every product category this year to varying degrees, but you are probably going to see more price increases on things like electronics and baby gear. and if you’re looking for a good price for this deal season, make sure and check Wirecutter’s deal page.

ROSIE: When we come back, Annemarie is going to give us some practical advice and some strategies for saving money while shopping this holiday season. Stick around, we’ll be right back.

CHRISTINE: Welcome back. We’re talking about holiday shopping with deputy editor, Annemarie Conte.

ROSIE: Annemarie, last year around Black Friday, we talked to Nathan Burrow, he’s the senior editor of deals here at Wirecutter. One of the things I thought was really interesting that he mentioned is this kind of, I don’t know if shady is the right word, but this move where you see prices on products increase just before deals events to sort of give the illusion that when we say 40% off, you’re getting this massive, massive discount. Talk to me about that and what we’re seeing a year later.

ANNEMARIE: We’ve been talking about this for years. We have been watching this happen over and over and over again across retailers. Multiple retailers do this. It is not specific to any one retailer. However, as we’ve been doing our 40-product price tracking, we definitely saw this happen where a laptop would go from 799 to 899 right before the deal event, and then it would go back down to 799 so it looked like it was on sale, and it was the same price it had been the whole time previous to that. And there’s now a class action lawsuit against Amazon for this reason, claiming that they misrepresented their pricing to make the deals look better. That is why we really encourage price tracking and purchasing from a reliable place. Like not to toot our own deals horn, but that’s what they do, and they will not post a price on a deal that isn’t a real deal.

ROSIE: Right. So the deals team at Wirecutter tracks product prices of Wirecutter picks across the site all year long. How do they do this tracking? How does it work?

ANNEMARIE: They’re geniuses and they’re very good at this. So a lot of it is manual. They’re checking every day to see what’s on sale, to see what the prices are. And then they also use tools that everybody has access to. So there are tools like Keepa, CamelCamelCamel, even Google Shopping that will show you the price tracking over time. With Google Shopping, you need to create a list and it’ll start tracking the product for you, but with Keepa and CamelCamelCamel, it’ll show you previous history, so you can take a look and see. And it just gives you a general timeframe and understanding of how much this product should cost so that you can decide if you’re comfortable paying that price.

CHRISTINE: And just to be clear, Keepa and CamelCamelCamel are to track amazon prices, prices on amazon. And then if you’re wanting to track deal history and prices for other sites, use google shop.

ANNEMAIRE: Yeah

ROSIE: Okay, so based on that data, do you think, and does your reporting suggest that we will see fewer deals heading into the holiday season this year, or are the deals that we will see just going to be smaller and less impactful than in years past?

ANNEMARIE: Yeah, we’ve seen deal quality reduce this year. So between July’s Prime Day and October’s Prime Big Deal Days, which now at this point, those are Amazon-specific events, but many retailers put deals on sale around that time to compete, right?

ROSIE: I’m sure, because they have to. Yeah.

ANNEMARIE: So across retailers, we have seen in just those three months the deal quality get worse. So you’re getting a worse deal now than you would have three months ago. And that’s for a variety of reasons, one being the stockpiled imports, but we also expect that for Black Friday, there will be plenty of good deals. They may not be the best deal you’ve ever seen. It may not be the onslaught of deals that we’ve seen in years past, but we are going to continue to vet and only post the deals that we deem worth it and worthy. But it’s also probably not a good idea to wait until Black Friday to do all of your shopping because it may not be the best deal you’ve ever seen.

And we’re also in a position now where Black Friday is the end of November, and so you only have a very limited amount of time to do your holiday shopping.

CHRISTINE: It sounds like culturally, we’ve been trained to think of Black Friday as the time to wait, think about what you want, and then see if you can get a good deal, right? So it sounds like what you’re saying, Annemarie, is that might be changing this year a little bit. If you see a good deal before Black Friday, go ahead and get it, because there’s no guarantee you’re going to see a huge drop at Black Friday. Would you say that’s accurate?

ANNEMARIE: Yeah. It feels like a mistake to wait this year. I think you should absolutely can and should shop on Black Friday if that’s important to you and if you want to see what deals there are out there, but we’re not necessarily confident that doing all of your shopping on Black Friday will make the most sense right now.

ROSIE: It’s amazing to me how much shopping and the economy around shopping has changed. I mean, even the fact of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, whatever Tuesday is, there’s this whole week now that’s focused. You mentioned both Prime Days. It seems like there are a lot of places to look at how broader economics and tariffs included are affecting prices of things, and it feels to me to be so dynamic, so out of my control, and that’s an uncomfortable place to be when going into holiday shopping. So I’m wondering, what is your practical advice beyond, you mentioned maybe don’t buy the brand new laptop. If it’s out of your price range, you might not need it. last year’s model might be great.

ANNEMARIE: It sounds so simple, and it’s literally make a list, right? And I think part of that is it doesn’t even have to be a list of everything that you want to buy. It’s the people in your life that you want to make sure you cover, and a general idea of what they like and they’re interested in. You still can have some serendipity here, but just getting yourself organized enough so that you know who’s important to you and who not to forget so that you’re not panicking at the last minute.

And there are so many places where you can buy gifts that you may not expect to, at a high-end grocery store or at a high-end pharmacy. There’s all these lovely little delights, and if you see a good deal on something, something that you think is a good price, there’s no harm in buying multiples of those and keeping them as future housewarming gifts or especially when it comes to kids as birthday gifts, because we do expect things to get more expensive, and so having a little stockpile of things that will go over well with more than one person is not a bad idea.

CHRISTINE: I love that. Earlier you mentioned that they don’t wait for Black Friday. You also said Black Friday is actually quite late in November this year, so the shipping window is kind of short, right, comparative to other years. What should people know about shipping?

ANNEMARIE: We’ve seen firsthand, I actually just ordered something from abroad and there were definitely customs delays. It had said it had already arrived and it hadn’t even left its warehouse yet, so it’s potentially a huge issue, and we’re not seeing as many of the tariff bills upon delivery that we thought we would.

ROSIE: Can you explain what those are?

ANNEMARIE: Yes. So the de minimis exemption went away, which meant that anything under $800 was supposed to get zero tariffs. When that went away, when you order something from abroad, sometimes the company in France or in England will absorb those fees or they will add it on at checkout. If they don’t do that, the shipper will show up at your door and say, “We’re not giving you this package until you pay something.” It’s usually around $30 from what we’ve seen. But Wirecutter has ordered thousands of products this year, and we’ve only received a handful of those tariff bills, so we don’t think it’s as big of an issue as we thought it might have been. However, we are seeing the shipping delays, so if you’re shopping at a place like Etsy, you can actually filter down and make sure that you’re shopping from US-based sellers, and that will reduce the friction potentially of an item not arriving on time if you can’t build in that extra time for something abroad.

If you know that you need that French tart server, buy it now just to make sure it gets here, because those companies even on their sites are saying there will be shipping delays. Keep that in mind. In terms of shipping generally within the continental US, most retailers are going to work their butts off to make sure that you get it. You might have to pay a little more, right? That’s always the case. As things end up more last minute, it might get more expensive to ship, but they’re really going to do the best they can to get it to you. And if you are shopping last minute, the safest sort of non-nail-biter, make sure it gets within the continental US is like the second week of December for a Christmas arrival.

ROSIE: We got to tell Caira.

CHRISTINE: Yeah, she’s not going to like that.

ANNEMARIE: They moved up Christmas. You got to shop earlier.

ROSIE: And then we should also say you can walk into stores still, turns out.

ANNEMARIE: It’s amazing, right? Yes.

ROSIE: All right, Annemarie. Thank you so much. Happy shopping this holiday season.

ANNEMARIE: You know what? No matter what, it’s going to be a great holiday season. We’re going to get it together. We’re going to figure it out.

CHRISTINE: Thanks, Annemarie.

ROSIE: If you want to find out more about the advice Annemarie had for us today, you can find links to her reporting in our show notes, or you could check out our website. And hey, if you like our show, first of all, we appreciate it. Second of all, we’d love if you’d share it with a friend. Don’t forget to subscribe on whatever app you like to listen on. That’s it for us. Thanks for listening.

CHRISTINE: The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Kiel. Engineering support from Maddie Maciello and Nick Pitman. Today’s episode was mixed by Katherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Rowan Niemisto, Katherine Anderson, and Diane Wong. Cliff Levy is Wirecutter’s deputy publisher and General manager. Ben Frumin is Wirecutter’s editor-in-chief. I’m Christine Christine Cyr Clisset.

ROSIE: And I’m Rosie Guerin.

CHRISTINE: Thanks for listening.

ANNEMARIE: Keepa, Keepa, Keepa? Sorry.

CHRISTINE: That’s a hard one. Keepa, Keepa, Keepa.

ANNEMARIE: It’s CamelCamelCamel and Keepa. So I like, just all the Keepas.