Trump's tariff promises have import-heavy retailers facing 'new reality'
11/09/2024 20:38
Fashion and apparel brands from Steve Madden to Under Armour, e.l.f. Beauty, and Ralph Lauren are preparing for President-elect Donald Trump’s promised tariffs.
Just days after Donald Trump's election win, the president-elect's proposed tariffs are shaping the strategy conversation at retailers across the fashion, beauty, and footwear industries.
Companies from athletic apparel maker Under Armour (UA, UAA) to Ralph Lauren (RL), Steve Madden (SHOO), and Kate Spade and Coach parent Tapestry (TPR) reported earnings this week. And each faced questions from Wall Street analysts about how Trump's proposals — which include 10%-20% tariffs across the board and a 60% tariff on goods from China — could pose a challenge in the months and years ahead.
"Just under half of our current business would be potentially subject to tariffs on Chinese imports," Steve Madden CEO Edward Rosenfeld said in a call with investors Thursday.
Christopher Hufnagel, CEO at Saucony and Chaco shoe-maker Wolverine Worldwide (WWW), said Thursday: "I think us, along with just about everyone, is sort of digesting the news and the new reality and to contemplate what's going to be on the horizon."
Meanwhile, makeup company e.l.f Beauty (ELF) said Wednesday evening that 80% of its products are imported from China. CEO Tarang Amin suggested impacts won't hit the company until 2026.
"Tariffs will have no impact in FY '25," Amin said. "It's when the new administration comes into power, we'll see what they enact, and given the length of our supply chain, this is something that would potentially hit us later in 2026."
Trump has promised to implement tariffs at levels unseen since the Great Depression.
And with more than one-third of US apparel imports coming from China alone, those promises on the campaign trail were already “triggering market panic” in the fashion industry this summer, Dr. Sheng Lu of the University of Delaware wrote in a July report from the US Fashion Industry Association.
Read more: How do tariffs work, and who really pays them?
As Yahoo Finance's Brooke DiPalma noted, the retail sector at large began feeling the effects of a looming Trump presidency on Wednesday, when retailers' stocks, including Five Below (FIVE), Best Buy (BBY), and online furniture retailer Wayfair (W), all dropped. Wayfair stock was hit hardest, falling 12%.
Footwear firms also face an especially difficult road ahead. Brooks Running CEO Dan Sheridan told Yahoo Finance earlier this month Trump's tariffs would be a "huge headwind" for the entire industry.
While apparel companies' earnings largely outperformed Wall Street’s expectations this week, questions about the potential for restrictive trade policies under the newly elected US president had executives on the defensive during calls with investors.
Steve Madden's Rosenfeld told investors Thursday that two-thirds of the shoe maker's business relies on US imports, with 70% of those imports coming from China. As a result, Rosenfeld said the footwear company plans to reduce sourcing from China by 40% to 45% — but even that reduction will leave more than a quarter of its business subject to tariffs on Chinese goods.
“We have been planning for a potential scenario in which we would have to move goods out of China more quickly,” he said. “We've worked hard over a multiyear period to develop our factory base and our sourcing capability in alternative countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, Mexico, Brazil, et cetera.”
Under Armour CFO David Bergman said the tariffs "could impact our cost of goods sold and gross margin,” adding, “We'll continue to manage it as best we can going forward.”
Executives this week also suggested they are prepared for a more restrictive trade environment under a second Trump administration, as the pandemic and Biden's trade policies have both stressed supply chains and elevated trade tensions in recent years.
"I would say that the industry now is much more cognizant of that risk than they were five years ago," Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah said in a call with investors on Nov. 1. Wayfair co-founder Steven Conine added, "We certainly have some practice now navigating tariffs."
Wolverine Worldwide's Hufnagel told investors that the company’s “earlier exposure to China is down dramatically from where we were just a couple of years ago” but is still in the “mid-teens range.”
Tapestry, for its part, said less than 10% of its overall sourcing currently comes out of China, meaning the threat of 60% tariffs is “not a big concern from our standpoint.”
"We've had so many disruptions and challenges that have forced us to make adaptions based on port strikes and freight lanes, whatever it might be, tariff regimes changing over time," said CFO Scott Roe. "So we're pretty well versed in managing through this."
Tariffs on apparel imports from China in 2023 under the Biden administration cost companies and US consumers $1.3 billion. In 2024, a record 43% of US fashion companies surveyed by the US Fashion Industry Association sourced less than 10% of their apparel products from China, compared to only 18% in 2018.
As Ralph Lauren's CFO Justin Picicci told analysts this week, the brand has "significantly diversified that sourcing footprint over the past seven-plus years," adding that "China now represents about [a] high-single-digit percentage of our globally sourced units."
"We're going to remain agile and continue to proactively develop and scale new global supply chain opportunities to mitigate any potential risks and disruptions."
Laura Bratton is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @LauraBratton5.
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