Tariffs are supposed to be math. Ten percent here, fifty there. You plug a number into the landed cost and decide. What we have now isn’t a number; it’s motion. The rate moves, the rules move, the calendar moves. That wobble is the real tax.
You can see it in a single ingredient. Carbone won’t swap San Marzano tomatoes or olive oil because that would change the product. That’s rational and expensive when policy shifts mid-run. Do you buy ahead and risk being wrong, or wait and risk being empty? Either way you pay, in cash, time, and trust.
The last month showed two kinds of shocks: timers and origins.
Timers are rules on countdowns. The U.S.–China “pause on additional retaliatory tariffs” now runs to Nov. 10. That isn’t guidance; it’s a clock over Q4 POs. De minimis, the <$800 pressure valve many DTC brands used, didn’t glide toward 2027; it snapped shut now. Calendars that used to absorb noise don’t work on 90-day loops.
Origins are when a country becomes the price. India jumped to 50% with almost no notice; the “China-plus-one” slide made less sense when lead times ran five times longer and the new rate erased savings. Mexico’s tomato shift and EU tariffs that now catch San Marzano repriced pantry staples midstream. Brazil’s 50% hit coffee and açaí; U.S. orders paused and fruit piled up.
Costs are painful. Unknowns are paralyzing. A company can absorb a hit; it can’t absorb a coin flip.
You can measure the paralysis by behavior. Retail buyers pulled more than half of holiday orders into May, then paused or canceled when goalposts moved. Amazon agencies, the seismograph, saw inbounds slow, retainers shrink, and CTV trials go on ice as clients hunted for margin. Even well-run teams lost hours to rebooking promos and redrawing cash curves. The damage landed first not in prices, but in decisions that didn’t get made.
This is what happens when constants turn into moving parts. A predictable 10% duty is a line item. A 10% that could be 0% or 50% next month forces you to carry too much or too little, to tie up cash or miss demand. It turns working capital into a hedge you never meant to run.
What do you do when the number won’t sit still? You don’t need heroics. You need rules.
Sacred.
Every brand has a few things you don’t change without changing the product. Write them down. If an origin or process is the product, San Marzano, Turkish pistachios, single-origin beans, you protect it. Everything else is adjustable. This prevents the quiet compromises that save a penny and spend your story.
Pre-decide.
Sketch three landing-cost cases–best, base, and ‘oh no’–and pre-wire the moves. Decide now which POs you’ll pull forward, which promos slide to safer months, and where you take price: start with members/club channels and bundles, test higher price on limited-time or limited-edition SKUs, and move the everyday list price last. The goal is to trade argument for execution so the next announcement triggers a playbook, not a meeting.
Shorten the loop.
If a PO change still needs three approvals, you’re donating margin to latency. Move decisions closer to the people watching the signal. The calm teams don’t know the future; they keep two good options open and pick quickly.
A note on diversification: it isn’t automatically good. Spreading production across countries buys options only if you can exercise them when rules change. Complexity is a cost. Some brands are consolidating back to China because “savings” elsewhere vanish when lead times stretch and duties jump. Others are widening the map with smaller bets and explicit exit ramps. Diversify to gain options, not meetings.
A note on pricing and communication: make changes feel like a ladder, not a wall and be plain about why. Pantry packs that pencil out. Multipacks that spread the hit. Seasonal runs that earn a premium instead of demanding it. Explain a price move once, especially when you’re protecting a sacred input, and move on. People understand what they’re paying for; they resent being handled.
The hard part this and next year is and will be deciding faster with less information, without eroding what makes your product itself. That’s the work. The edge in 2025 is the having options, not the lowest COGS.
That’s it for this week.
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Can Koyuncu, Co-Founder & CMO