Marc Bowker’s store, Alter Ego Comics, has been a basic element in North Main Street in the center of Lima, Ohio, for 16 years.
The store sells comics and collectibles and often organizes community events, including an annual day of free comics, where they give thousands of comics.
But now Bowker says he doesn’t know what he will bring on Monday, given the punishment as president Donald TrumpRate policy.
He said that suppliers are charging up to 34% more as a direct result of tariffs, some of whom had to transmit to their customers.
“If you see that prices go up in your small local business, it is not because we want,” Insider told Business. “It’s because we are forced to do it.”
About 70% of alter ego’s revenues come from high -end collectibles based on brands from brands such as Star Wars, Marvel, DC Comics and Disney. These products are manufactured in China, which has been beaten with up to 245% fee For some goods. Bowker said that his profit margins have been cut in half in many articles, including some that were requested for months ago.
“The Chinese government is not paying the rate, the American consumer and the small American company are paying the rate, and the US company that pays to manufacture the product in China,” he said.
Small businesses And retail experts told BI that rates are being affected by rates. Meanwhile, the largest corporate counterparts are better positioned to resist the storm.
Trump has framed his economic policy so explicitly for Central America. “President of Main Street, no Financial World“The White House promoted an online summary of Trump’s speech Earlier this month, after its tariff policy, it sent to the financial markets that it became the tank and companies around the world.
Companies on the main streets of the United States are feeling the impact of Trump’s commercial war.
Many independent retailers, some of which have been accessories in their villages for a long time, are struggling to adapt to rates, especially the strong rate imposed on China’s assets. Think of wedding stores, toy stores, coffee shopsSpecialized food and drinking stores and importers.
“Everything is devastating, but small businesses have a worse capacity to manage it,” Pacific Research Institute, a group of free market experts, told BI Wayne Wingen. “This is not Pro-Main street, this is Anti-Main Street.”
“The largest companies are in a better position to absorb some of the costs,” Winegarden said. “They probably have more fat that they can cut than small businesses. Small businesses operate on lower margins, so they can’t really absorb it so easily.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comments.
Winegarden said that many small businesses are family property, and are the classic example of how Americans upload the economic staircase to the middle class, the upper middle class and beyond.
“These tariffs simply cut the steps,” he said.
Trump has said that Americans could feel “short -term” pain as a result of tariffs, but experts He said that the pain may not be in the short term for everyone, and that it is the small businesses that are going to get out first.
“It is temporary for Starbucks. They will resist it,” said Winegarden, adding: “But it is a year, it is probably too long for many small businesses, and that is a permanent pain.”
Why small businesses fight more with tariffs
Toy stores could be affected by rates, since most toys imported to the United States are made in China. Ying Tang/Nurphoto through Getty Images
Jason Miller, a professor at Michigan State University and supply chain management expert, told BI that there were several factors that hinder rates for small businesses. On the one hand, its cash flow is more limited, which means that they cannot necessarily pay a rate for a product that will actually not sell until some moment in the future, sometimes months later.
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Small retailers are also less likely to obtain directly from suppliers and, instead, trust an intermediary as a wholesale or importer. That gives them much less influence to negotiate prices in their assets.
“They are in a situation of taking or leaves,” said Miller.
In contrast, a great buyer like Walmart has many more options and negotiation power to obtain better offers on the products they sell.
Miller said that toy stores stand out before him as a sector of small businesses that could be especially affected by tariffs on China, where 80% of all toys imports come to the US. UU.
The owners of independent brick and mortar wedding stores, a common element in the main streets, previously told BI that they are also being beaten strongly, such as most Wedding dresses Sold in the USA. It comes from China.
On the contrary, David’s bridal CEO, Kelly Cook, said the company, which is the largest wedding retailer in the United States, was more resistant to the rate thanks to its largest and most varied supply and production chain.
Peter Cohan, associate professor at Babson College, Bi said that the pain that small players in Main Street feel that it would probably exacerbate existing trends towards market concentration, with cascade effects on prices, innovation, employment and economic inequality.
“Small retailers employ almost half of all US private workers. Their decrease would eliminate jobs disproportionately in local communities,” Cohan said. “Concentrated employers can suppress salaries. Retail giants such as Walmart have been related to lower salaries in local labor markets.”
Cohan added that tariffs could expel local retailers and allow large companies to expand without control, which harms competition for consumers and workers. The rapid expansion of Walmart between 1990 and 2010 was often associated with the decline of local retailers Within the same region, the rise of Amazon is similarly associated with the reduction of local bookstores, which decreased diversity in the editorial industry.
“Dominant retailers use their purchasing power to demand lower prices from suppliers, but these savings are rarely transmitted to consumers. Instead, suppliers can reduce quality or reduce salaries to meet demands,” Cohan said. “The profits would be concentrated among the shareholders of large companies, worsening the wealth gaps.”
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Importers who serve the retailers directly are also fighting
Wine importers are among small businesses that are beaten by rates. Deb Cohn-Forch/UCG/Universal Images Group through Getty Images
When Trump announced generalized tariffs on April 2, Victor Schwartz and his daughter Chloe Schwartz, who possesses and directs the selections of you, a specialized company of wines and spirits based in New York, spent the next two days in an intense mathematical marathon trying to calculate how to re-approve their products, and which to leave.
A week later, Trump decided to stop the so -called reciprocal tariffs in most commercial partners for 90 days, but left a 10% reference rate instead, and the efforts of the Schwartzs disappeared immediately in the wind.
“We are in that position of having to make firm decisions about what our price would be in very uncertain situations,” said Victor Schwartz to BI. “This means that we have to be much stricter in our inventory. We had to reduce some orders where we could, we stopped some orders where we could, we did not advance in new projects or delay them.”
Despite being a small company operated by owners of only 19 employees, Vos Selections manages around 600 products of 350 different producers around the world. Its vast wallet used to be a merit, but under the rates of rates constantly, it became a nightmare.
Alcohol It is a very regulated product, and the regulations require that importers report their prices at least a month before time before something reaches retailers: prices prices cannot change later. For Schwartz, this means deciding May prices in March, leaving space for supplier negotiations, delays in port sending and processing. Any surprise expense in this process, as a sudden change in tariffs, would mean a small business disaster with a limited cash flow.
But surprise expenses are not the only concern, said Schwartz. Retail stores and restaurants buying wines have not been doing well in the first quarter under the feelings of cushioned consumption and other costs associated with the rate, which said that their business decreased by 16% compared to the first quarter in 2024.
“If a restaurant is priced at $ 20 for its white wine, and I can no longer offer it at $ 20, they will buy something else, and I will lose that business,” said Schwartz. “The client who paid $ 20 will not say ‘Yes, we really liked that wine, so we are willing to pay $ 24 for it'”.
“There is an inflexibility in the price in terms of what the customer is looking for,” he added.
The Schwartz business is now the main plaintiff in the broader demand of the Trump of the International Law of Emergency Economic Powers to impose rates, which no previous president has done. The demand argues that the use of Trump of the IEEEPA to completely move to Congress violates the constitutional limits on the Executive Power, and that a Commercial Deficit of Decadienda does not comply with the criteria of “unusual and extraordinary threat” in the law.
As of April 18, the Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian legal group that represents this lawsuit in the Court, has submitted an application before the United States International Trade Court for a temporary restriction order to suspend Trump’s rates.
Winegarden, Del Pacific Research Institute, told him that the tariffs would do what Covid did to small businesses. Where Winegarden lived in New York, the windows that closed during the pandemic have He remained closed for years.
“Everyone talks about small businesses, right? They are the heroes,” said Winegarden. “Everyone liked small businesses, so it is very ironic. Why do we implement policies that punish them in particular?”
Do you have a story to share about how rates are affecting your small business? Contact these reporters in kvlamis@businessinsider.com either katherineli@businessinsider.com.