If you source products from China and sell them on Amazon, Etsy, Shopify, or any U.S. marketplace, this week is not a normal week.
The tariff picture has changed significantly in 2026. Effective rates on many categories of goods manufactured in China now stack well above where most small sellers built their margins. The de minimis exemption - the $800 rule that let shipments under that value enter duty-free - is gone for Chinese imports. And unlike a large retailer with leverage to renegotiate supplier contracts, you probably don't have a lot of options at the contract level.
So what do you actually do?
Jungle Scout's recent pulse survey of Amazon sellers found that 62% have already raised prices. That's the obvious lever, and it's real - but it's not the only one, and for some sellers, it's not even the best one.
Here's what the e-commerce sellers who are navigating this well are actually doing.
Step 1: Know Your Real Numbers Before You Do Anything
Before you raise prices, cut SKUs, or shift suppliers, you need to know your actual landed cost for each product. Not the cost of the product. The landed cost - which includes the product, freight, tariffs, customs broker fees, inspection costs, FBA fees (if applicable), and platform commission.
Most small sellers know their product cost with reasonable precision. Far fewer have the full landed cost calculated, because most of the time it didn't matter much. It matters now.
Here's the basic formula:
Landed cost = Product cost + Freight + Customs duties + Broker fees + Any testing or compliance costs
If your product costs $8, freight adds $1.50, and you're now paying 30% in tariffs on the dutiable value (product + freight = $9.50), your duty is roughly $2.85. Add $0.40 for customs processing. Your landed cost is now $12.75 instead of $10 - a 27.5% jump on a $10 item, before you've touched your price, your FBA fees, or your margins.
Do this math for every SKU that comes from a tariff-affected country. It takes an afternoon. The results will tell you which products you can still sell profitably at a competitive price and which ones you can't.
Step 2: Sort Your Products Into Three Buckets
Once you have the numbers, you can make decisions.
Bucket 1: Raise the price. These are products where your category is repricing across the board, customer demand is inelastic (they buy regardless of price), and you have strong reviews and rank. If everyone selling a similar item is raising prices, the whole market is resetting. You can move with it.
Bucket 2: Trim or exit. These are products that were already thin-margin before the tariffs. The math doesn't work at any price point the market will actually bear. Exiting these SKUs - running a liquidation sale, reducing inventory orders, or shutting the listing - is not failure. It's capital reallocation.
Bucket 3: Investigate alternatives. These are products where you have a real market and real customers but the China supply chain is now untenable. This is the category where supplier diversification matters.
Step 3: Supplier Diversification Is Real, But Takes Time
The most-discussed alternative sourcing countries right now are Vietnam, India, Mexico, Turkey, and Indonesia. All have trade relationships that look favorable compared to China's current tariff situation.
A few things to understand:
Vietnam has capacity in electronics, textiles, and furniture, but lead times from new suppliers can run 3 to 6 months for a quality-controlled first run. If you're not already in conversations with Vietnamese suppliers, your earliest realistic shift is Q3 at best.
India has strong capacity in textiles, home goods, jewelry, and certain food categories. Quality variance is wider than in China for some categories, which means first-order audits matter more.
Mexico benefits from USMCA (the trade agreement between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico), which means zero tariffs on qualifying products. If your product can be made there, the logistics are also faster - proximity beats across-Pacific shipping times by 2 to 3 weeks.
For most small sellers, a full sourcing shift in 2026 isn't realistic. But a partial shift - moving one or two of your most tariff-exposed SKUs to a new origin country - is achievable and worth pursuing now.
Faire (faire.com) is worth checking if you're looking at wholesale pivot options for retail. For direct factory connections, Alibaba's RFQ tool still works, but filter specifically for non-China origins.
Step 4: Repricing Strategy - Do It Right
If you're raising prices on Amazon or Shopify, there are ways to do it that protect your competitive position more than others.
On Amazon: Use a gradual increase rather than a one-time jump. Amazon's algorithm tracks price change history. A sudden 30% jump can flag your listing for review and temporarily reduce your visibility. Moving up 5-7% at a time over two to three weeks is less disruptive to your ranking.
On Shopify and direct-to-consumer: A transparent communication to your email list before you raise prices tends to generate a short-term spike in orders. People buy before the price goes up. More importantly, customers who know why the price changed are more likely to stay than customers who notice the change and feel like something was done to them without explanation.
A single email explaining "Tariffs have raised our costs by X%, and we're adjusting prices accordingly" - written plainly, without drama - is often enough. Most customers understand the news. They just want to feel like you're being straight with them.
Step 5: Double Down on Reviews and Conversion Rate
Here's the counterintuitive part of the tariff environment: because every seller is raising prices, the ones who win are not necessarily the ones with the lowest price. They're the ones with the best conversion rate at the new price.
Reviews are the primary driver of conversion rate on Amazon and most marketplaces. A product with 500 reviews at 4.7 stars selling for $24.99 will outsell a product with 80 reviews at 4.3 stars selling for $21.99 in most categories.
If your product has under 200 reviews, this is the moment to run a legitimate review generation campaign - following up with buyers, enrolling in Amazon's Vine program if eligible, and optimizing your packaging to include a review reminder card.
Your competitors are focused on the supply chain right now. Use that window to build the moat that will matter when the dust settles.
What This Looks Like in Months
The sellers who will come out of this in a stronger position are the ones who do three things in parallel: raise prices where the market allows, exit the products where it doesn't, and start the supplier diversification process now even if the first results are 6 months away.
The sellers who will struggle are the ones who freeze - who keep running the same SKUs at the same prices, watching margins compress, and hoping the tariff situation resolves before it becomes a crisis.
It may resolve. But betting your business on policy outcomes you can't control is not a strategy.
You can control your product list, your pricing, your supplier relationships, and your conversion rate. Start there.
Sources: Jungle Scout Amazon Seller Pulse Survey (junglescout.com/resources); U.S. Customs and Border Protection tariff schedules (cbp.gov); Faire wholesale marketplace (faire.com)
Jordan Park covers e-commerce and retail for The Useful Daily. Published at theusefuldaily.com.