Walmart Faces Price Increase With Tariffs….

Walmart Price Increases with Tariffs

On a call Thursday, Walmart’s CEO warned that while they’ve seen healthy first-quarter revenue, they’ll still be forced to raise some prices as a result of higher tariffs. The hikes will mostly come on goods from China and some Latin America countries, and increases will likely start appearing between the end of May and middle of June.

McMillon noted that Walmart will be able to manage better than most, but that higher costs of imports on their end will inevitably result in higher costs for consumers as well.  The CEO said,

“We will do our best to keep our prices as low as possible, but given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, we aren’t able to absorb all the pressure, given the reality of narrow retail margins,”

While we saw earlier this week that tariffs will be temprorarily reduced (for 90 days), Walmart anticipates making some higher-cost pricing decisions on imported groceries and perishables, but especially on incoming shipments of Back to School, Halloween and Holiday goods.  Here are some things they’ve hinted at seeing higher prices on:

• Bananas
• Coffee
• Roses
• Avocados
• Toys
• Xbox Games & Controllers

Walmart customers react without much surprise according to this CNBC interview – but admit to cutting back and gardening more to drive down household food costs.  We’ll be keeping an eye on these prices and updating this story when we know more!