Honolulu (Hawaiinewsnow) – Local entrepreneurs say they are struggling to find new suppliers, since tariffs on Chinese products send costs.
Tom Walker owns the Sweet Treat Ohana Nui company, which uses bags made in China to package its homemade and brittle island flavor cookies.
Due to the American-China commercial war, its operational costs have more than duplicated.
“The price of all bags is $ 7,000, which is reasonable about how many thousands of cash bags I am getting, but the invoice or estimate arrived more 10,000, which is a 145%rate, so basically what was $ 7,000 now is $ 17,000,” Walker said.
“There is not much margin in cookies, and I cannot transmit it to the consumer, so we are the person in the middle of small businesses, and there are other companies that have already printed sitting things in palettes in China ready to come. They cannot afford, you know, we live just to the limit.”
Finding another bag manufacturer in the United States or a country with lower tariffs was not easy. And it is costing thousands of dollars.
“I expected them to be available in a month or so, so I am losing income. So I discovered that I think another printer at the national level. They are still more expensive, but that will add another month. So I am losing a month of sales and the people who have their products fully produced abroad, are struggling to find other places that can take months,” Walker said.
And while the rate successfully diverted the businesses of a Chinese company to an American company, Walker says it is only temporary.
“Its price is 50% more than it was getting for Asia,” said Walker, who adds that he plans to look for another supplier in Asia.
For now, Walker says he trusts in the existing inventory and becomes creative to avoid increasing prices.
“The consumer is suffering. We cannot suddenly charge the double in the product. They will not buy it. They will go for something cheap,” he said.
“I think that stability helps, and at this time it is day by day, it is month by month. So, when you try to assemble, as if they knew what the margins are in my cookies, and I know how much I can go down and still make money,” Walker said.
“The only way I can really survive, and I have been wanting to take some of this to the continent, keep him Hawaii that manufactured Hawaii, but entering a larger market because the more volume he can sell.”
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