A few weeks ago, I received a 50% tariff bill on a fabric shipment — not a fee paid by another country, but money owed by me, a small business owner in Pittsburgh, before I could even put the fabric on my shelves.
I own a fabric storefront in Pittsburgh called Firecracker Fabrics, and this is what punitive tariffs look like for me.
I opened Firecracker, in Morningside, nine years ago because serving the maker community made me happy. Retail is full of easy dopamine hits: unboxing beautiful products, problem-solving with customers, and the joy we get to share with neighbors because our shop is their happy place.
I think you have to be a little unhinged to open a business like mine because, as most people know, storefronts suffer high mortality rates. You have to believe you can make a living doing something small and local while competing against billion-dollar corporations in an economy that rewards scaling and homogenization. Most of us are doing this because we care about having real spaces that anchor our communities and preserve local knowledge. Once these things disappear, they don’t come back.
Small business owners talk a lot about the many misperceptions about how retail actually works in the U.S. — especially the differences between large, profit-guzzling corporations and the day-to-day realities of running an independent storefront.
As consumer spending has shifted online, Americans have been trained to expect unrealistically low prices while we maintain welcoming physical spaces and provide excellent customer service.
I don’t blame consumers for wanting lower prices. I place the blame squarely on leadership that allows billionaires to dictate the terms we live by, while the cost of basic survival continues to rise.
In small retail, owners get paid from the last few cents of each product. After operating costs, what’s left is slim. If I discount a product to absorb a sudden increase like a tariff, that margin disappears quickly and I don’t get paid for my work. That’s how small shops can look busy, successful and full – while the owner takes home next-to-nothing.
Unmanageable uncertainty
Selling fabric in a storefront is … complicated. I juggle lead times ranging from months to over a year, working with overseas manufacturers and domestic distributors who have small production runs and large order minimums. To stock my shelves, I have to commit tens of thousands of dollars per season — often months before the fabric even exists — and hope that my choices sell at full price. Fabric is expensive, high-risk and difficult to source at my scale.
I’ve watched my costs rise dramatically over the last eight years, even before President Donald Trump was elected.
Small retailers were paying attention during his campaign, when Trump promised exactly what he delivered: punitive, often arbitrary, tariffs levied against trade partners to force manufacturing back onto American soil. Economists warned this would be disastrous.
Editor’s note: The Trump administration has said tariffs are part of “continued efforts to protect the United States against foreign threats to the national security and economy of the United States by securing fair, balanced and reciprocal trade relationships to benefit American workers, farmers and manufacturers and to strengthen the United States’ defense industrial base.”
Until recently, I gave little thought to tariffs. Occasionally, a shipment from overseas would come with an extra bill — usually $45 to $150 — paid to shippers UPS or DHL. It was a manageable expense that I could fold into shipping costs. Now, retailers like me are seeing tariff bills in the thousands.
The new tariffs on fabric are extraordinarily complex. They change frequently and are difficult for small business owners to interpret. On top of the regular baseline duties, the Trump administration has imposed fees applied solely based on country of origin, not its quality or function.
The result is uncertainty and confusion at every stage of ordering and receiving inventory.
Some vendors handle this by adding tariffs as a separate line item on price sheets. Some quietly raise wholesale prices. Others ship “Delivered Duty Paid” and promise no surprises, or present a rough tariff estimate.
As tariff rates have increased in 2025, costs across the industry have risen. Every time I check in an order, the cost has gone up — sometimes only weeks after the last shipment by the same vendor.
I might place an order four months in advance with a European distributor, without knowing exactly where each fabric was manufactured, and carry the risk myself. That uncertainty used to be manageable. It no longer is.
Re-running the numbers
Which brings me back to my 50% tariff bill.
I placed an order with a UK company for fabric manufactured in India, where textiles are now tariffed at 50% across the board. I placed the order months before that tariff was implemented. I had no idea it could get that bad.
Months later, the company reached out to ask whether I still wanted to accept the shipment — an unusual gesture that showed how difficult this moment is for everyone involved. They are a small-to-medium-sized business, and canceling the order would have damaged a long standing relationship.
I accepted the order, knowing the tariff would destroy my margins.
We’re currently selling those fabrics without passing the tariff cost on to customers, because I know they simply won’t sell with a 50% markup. At this point, I just want my investment back. It’s beautiful fabric, and it’s heartbreaking to know that a large, carefully planned order will not contribute to my paycheck at all.
On a typical day in my shop, customers don’t see any of this. They see bolts on shelves, cute sewing supplies, and a small business owner who seems lucky to be doing something she loves. They don’t see me re-running numbers after closing, trying to decide whether a fabric category is still viable, or quietly shelving ideas I can no longer afford to gamble on.
Paid by you and me
A few days ago, one of our Canadian vendors sent an updated price sheet. It wasn’t a warning or political statement — just a spreadsheet. For each fabric, it listed the base wholesale price, the duty and tariffs applied, and the new final cost to me. These are familiar, everyday fabrics my customers already love, but now a significant part of their cost comes from tariffs alone, before I even think about shipping, rent or payroll.
This is how tariffs show up in small shops like mine: not as headlines or talking points, but as quiet math that decides what I can afford to stock and what I can’t. A few extra dollars per yard at the wholesale level doesn’t sound dramatic, but at my scale, those dollars compound quickly. They narrow my choices, raise my risk and slowly squeeze the creativity out of a business built on margins.
What makes this especially painful is the unbelievable amount of misinformation leaders are spreading about tariffs. Despite repeated claims to the contrary, tariffs are not paid by foreign governments. They are paid by American importers — by small businesses like mine — and passed along to American consumers. When politicians boast about billions collected in tariff revenue, they are talking about money paid by people like me. And you.
In the meantime, we’re told to “just source from America.” If only it were that simple. Fabric manufacturing largely left the U.S. decades ago, and rebuilding that infrastructure would take just as long and come with significantly higher costs. In the short term, these tariffs don’t create domestic manufacturing. They create panic, product gaps and higher prices for everyday goods.
Many small businesses aren’t talking about this publicly. I suspect it’s partly self-protection. Independent retailers already navigate enough hostility online, and most are just trying to stay afloat.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule on tariffs. Until it does, my job has become significantly harder. Certain categories of fabric — especially those primarily manufactured in heavily tariffed countries — will become harder to source or disappear entirely. I’m working to buy from existing U.S. inventory where possible, but those reserves are finite. As affordable options vanish, I’m left making difficult choices: Do I eliminate entire categories, or fill shelves with safer, less-interesting basics my regular customers won’t be excited about?
These aren’t abstract trade policies, and they’re not strategic fees being paid by U.S. adversaries. These tariffs decide what I can put on my shelves, whether I can pay myself, and whether shops like mine can realistically keep their doors open. Again: They don’t punish foreign governments. They punish American small business owners and American consumers.
I hope more of us start saying that out loud, and that consumers demand trade policies that actually support the businesses they say they want to keep around.
Erin Love is the owner of Firecracker Fabrics, an independent fabric shop in Pittsburgh. She can be reached at hello@firecrackerfabrics.com or on instagram at @firecrackerfabrics.
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