Adafruit, a provider of do-it-yourself computer parts, is warning it’ll need to raise prices on some products after receiving its first major import bill on Chinese goods.
The New York-based company was charged $36,126 for a recent shipment of components through delivery provider DHL.“Tariffs just got real,” Adafruit said in a post on Bluesky.
In a blog post, the company added that a large portion of the shipment was subject to the “125%+20%+25% import markup,” a reference to Trump’s recent 125% tariff on Chinese imports, in addition to his existing tariffs. Although the president has exempted chips, computers, and other “electronic integrated circuits” and LEDs from the full 125% tariff, no reprieve was given to other components such as fans, liquid coolers, and power supplies.
(Credit: Adafruit)
Adafruit, which sells over 4,000 products, didn’t say what parts it ordered from its Chinese supplier. But the company’s founder, Limor Fried, tells PCMag that all foreign-made components still face at least a 10% tariff, with some at the 45% level or even more. Although Adafruit manufactures many products from its own factory in New York City, it still needs to source components from China, such as a special kind of LED that’s exclusively made in the country.
“These particular products we couldn’t manufacture ourselves even if we wanted to, since the vendor has well-deserved IP [intellectual property] protections,” Adafruit said in its blog post.
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Still, the resulting $36,000 import fee is alarming because Adafruit needs to pay the cost upfront, before any of the components can be sold to consumers, which can disrupt its cash flow. As a result, Adafruit warned in its blog post: “We’ll have to increase the prices on some of these products, but we’re not sure if people will be willing to pay the higher cost, so we may well be ‘stuck’ with unsellable inventory that we have already paid a large fee on.”
The company will also try to reclassify some of the components under different tariff codes to avoid the 125% duty. “But there’s no assurance that it will succeed, and even if it does, it is many, many months until we could see a refund,” Adafruit said.
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Others, including security camera vendor Wyze, have also reported high fees on Chinese imports. As a result, many companies, including Adafruit, are trying to shift manufacturing to markets with lower tariffs, including Europe. But that will take time and money.
“Yes, this is going to change how all businesses operate,” Fried says. “Time to get gritty and find a way over, under, through as they say.”
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