With the announcement of new tariffs on lumber and other furniture supplies, many braced for higher prices. But one South Dakota business owner said he’s not feeling the pain from the Trump administration’s latest round.
Eric Sinclair is the owner of Montgomery’s, an Eastern South Dakota mattress and furniture store. And he said things have been relatively stable on their end.
"There’s been some tariff activity. It has not really affected our business, and a lot of our manufacturing partners have just eaten a portion or all of the tariffs up to this date," Sinclair said. "So, we have seen some minimal price increases but nothing crazy.”
That tracks with data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that shows U.S. Consumers are paying 4.65% more on furniture and bedding compared to last year. Furniture tariffs are going to 25%, but a lot of furniture tariffs are already at 20% so the difference isn’t as noticeable to consumers.
Sinclair said he doesn’t expect any drastic changes.
“Some of these new rounds of tariffs, I think there’s a lot of people still waiting for the details on them. I know a lot of our manufacturing partners are sending us correspondents saying that they’re waiting for more information to come out of Washington D.C. and out of the White House as to what specifically is going to happen," Sinclair said. "But it looks like right now a lot of the new rounds of tariffs do not stack on the old tariffs, so it’s probably going to be fairly minor.”
He said the Chinese tariffs will stack, but most of the industry has moved away from using Chinese products anyways. He added that a lot of manufacturers in the furniture industry have gotten used to the volatility of tariffs.
“We’ve seen a lot of movement in where our product comes from and a lot of these people are accustomed to having to move to a different country to go around some of the tariffs,” Sinclair said.
To his surprise, he said customer demand hasn’t changed either despite some of the increased media coverage of tariffs. For Montgomery’s, it’s business as usual.
