How to mitigate the impact of Increased Tariffs
So finally, President Trump announced the increased Tariffs on the US imports yesterday. The stock markets are in free fall while consumer sentiment is nose-diving. I am sure we can have a good debate regarding are these tariffs improve US jobs and economy in the long term, but in the short term they are going to be very painful for both companies and consumers. Hence, the immediate step for the companies is to develop strategies to mitigate the impact. Based on my years of experience across various retailers and supply chain planning over the last several years, I believe the Supply Chain teams will be focused on the following actions: 1. Expedite bulk import: Considering the import tariffs will be imposed from April 9th, the immediate focus for supply chain teams is to expedite to receive the imports before that the effective date. I think most of the teams already knew that. That's why the volume of imports for the last three months has been significantly higher YoY. The team...