Perhaps you've seen the headlines? It's real... Unexpected tariffs are having an enormous impact on our world, supply chains, and our business in particular. 
Many very high quality child safety seats and baby strollers are designed here in the US, or in Germany or elsewhere - but are manufactured in China. The supply chain links simply don't exist here. It would take years to build them from scratch, and if nearly all economists are to be believed, once in place it is a near-lock that prices would be significantly higher, presumably lowering our overall standard of living.
You can expect to see prices increasing in the very near future. As retailers who work on pretty small margins (much smaller than the manufacturer) we don't have the ability to absorb much if any of this price shock. And we are obligated by the manufacturer to sell gear at the new prices.
But there is a potentially more significant issue: product shortages. In our intelligence gathering with manufacturers, it's clear that product is shipping to the US in significantly reduced volumes. Until the tariff uncertainty is clarified, the boats and the container units are simply not coming. It's essentially a repeat of the Covid era. Products will be in short supply very soon. In fact some of our best sellers are unavailable for future orders right now.
During Covid, The Pump Station was second to none in our ability to obtain product when others were sold out. We attribute this to our veteran buying team, who brings big retail chain buying experience and relationships across the industry. We were there for you during Covid and survived; we plan on doing it again by buying as aggressively as possible to maintain our inventory, as we enter this uncertain time.
And in an effort to hyper-focus on serving our local and California customer base, we are making a temporary change to our shipping policy. California consumers will continue to earn free shipping on purchases over $100 including baby gear from The Pump Station. Baby Gear shipments (larger items like car seats and strollers, etc.) to out-of-state customers will incur a temporary tariff-era shipping surcharge. This should help us to fairly maintain the flow of product to our local customers as the shortages evolve.
(That said, we strongly recommend that our out-of-state customers push a cart through to checkout to evaluate our pricing.)
At the risk of repeating ourselves, thank you so very much for your support and patronage of The Pump Station, and of local small business.
Got questions? Reach out anytime to our customer service with any concerns—we’re here for you.
