LONGWOOD, Fla. — As the ongoing trade war between China and U.S. continues to work itself out, one item that appears to be being impacted now is toys.
Between video games, comic books, and action figures, tariffs are impacting the business.
Christmas may be several months away, but when it comes to planning and stocking for the holiday, the time is now. Distributors are telling toy stores to plan ahead.
Lawrence Jorash, the director of sales for ACME Superstore in Longwood, says when it comes to the new toys inside the store, 60% are from China. Distributors are currently recommending he buy now to make sure shelves are fully stocked for Christmas — a full month before he normally would.
“Price wise, I am not noticing much of a difference,” Jorash said. “I am getting the, ‘Hey, you need to order these large shipments of 64 toys in a case if you want to guarantee them for Christmas.’”
On the other side of ACME Superstore, there are boxes and boxes of comic books.
While 90% of them are made in the U.S. their most important component, the ink, comes from China.
Popular comic book franchise “Spawn” recently saw a notable increase that his patrons didn’t support.
“You’ll notice that there is a price here of $3.99,” Jordan said. “Right now my store is eating a cost of $2.99. And I had about 50% of my readers ask to cancel their subscription that day.”
ACME Superstore decided to eat the cost.
Down the road at Cybertron Video Games, tariffs have also made their presence felt. Thursday Xbox prices rose across the country, but Cybertron is not raising prices until their current stock sells out.
“There was a price increase of a $100 on the consoles, and that was across the board,” Cybertron Video Games co-owner Gregg Perez said. “Games also increased to $70. Tariffs were probably the main cause of that.”
As for Nintendo products, accessories have increased by about 10% in the past few weeks, but Nintendo is also telling customers, prices could increase even more.
Currently, the Nintendo Switch 2 is scheduled to be released in June for a price of $449.99, but the next restock which would be in the fall could see that price increase as well.
发表回复