Toy stores grapple with tariffs that threaten to drive up prices
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
It’s not uncommon to hear a kid squeal in an aisle of Richards Variety Store, an eclectic Atlanta emporium with two locations.
On its packed shelves are more than 100,000 items, from silly horse-head masks to 3D-printed dragons, board games, trinkets and toys.
But this year isn’t so fun for Ming “Yaya” Yang, owner of the Ansley Mall store, near Piedmont Park. Richards Variety Store is named after a member of its founding family, which still owns the Buckhead location.
A barrage of import taxes on overseas goods — including toys, which are largely made outside the U.S. — has sent some Atlanta toy store owners scrambling. Some are grappling with higher product costs or uncertainty around expiring trade deals, while another stocked up on inventory.
“It’s a tough year,” Yang said, recounting a recent order of craft supplies from England she decided to refuse. The shipment of ribbons, pipe cleaners and plastic googly eyes had a more than $400 import tax attached, she said, nearly half the merchandise value.
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
She’s also seeing some vendors require variable pricing, which means she may place an order at one price but be billed a different amount later. Friday afternoon Yang was trying to reconcile the prices of products in a new shipment with what was already labeled on the shelf.
“Anything I have to buy with (a) much higher price, I will have to raise a price,” Yang said. “If the price goes too crazy, I’ll have to discontinue the item.”
Many of President Donald Trump’s new tariffs went into effect last week. The Budget Lab at Yale University now estimates that overall prices will increase 1.8% in the “short run.”
And a big trade deadline looms between the U.S. and China that could affect the toy industry. In May, the superpowers agreed to a 90-day truce that reduced U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods from a high of 145% in April to 30%. That agreement was extended Monday for another 90 days until mid-November, CNBC and other media outlets reported, citing a White House official. .
Nearly 80% of U.S. toys are imported from China, according to The Toy Association, a trade group.
If the U.S. and China end up at a trade impasse and the U.S. raises tariffs again, it would “make life difficult for retailers, manufacturers and consumers going into the holiday season,” said Joe Novak, who owns Buckhead toy store Kazoo Toys.
“For this holiday season, we just need to eke out a few more weeks without a tariff increase,” Novak said. That’s because most products should be “on the water” to be shipped across the ocean in the next month, he said.
“In the toy industry, there are no real U.S.-made options, and the industry would take years to develop,” Novak said.
Trump previously discussed the potential impacts of tariffs to the toy industry.
“Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls,” Trump said during a late April cabinet meeting where he discussed the trade war with China. “Maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”
The Toy Association said the price of toys, games and play equipment rose a record 2.2% between April and May, far outpacing the 0.1% inflation rate for all items that month.
Mattel Inc., known for toy brands such as Barbie, Hot Wheels and Fisher-Price, said it raised prices as a tactic to deal with tariffs. It did not specify by how much.
“We have taken the pricing actions that are necessary at the current tariff price,” Chief Financial Officer Paul Ruh said during a late July earnings conference call. “So we feel very confident that is behind us.”
Mattel saw net sales dip 6% in the second quarter from the same period last year, with Ruh citing global trade dynamics and a shift in retailer order patterns affecting its U.S. performance. Still, the company expressed optimism for the holiday shopping season.
One Atlanta store owner is not stressed.
Robert Klenberg, who owns the Richards Variety Store in Buckhead’s Peachtree Battle shopping center, took quick action and ordered “like crazy” in late February, he said.
“As soon as there was even a hint of tariffs, I started buying up stock from all my major vendors to get me through Christmas 2025 without being impacted by the tariffs,” he said.
As a result, Klenberg said he hasn’t had to raise prices on 98% of his products.
“The tariffs — they could force us to raise prices eventually," he said. “I hope they get all this stuff negotiated and settled, and that the world calms down.”
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