Best Buy’s CEO Corie Barry told analysts she expects the chain’s goods to see price increases based on new tariffs.
About 55 percent of Best Buy’s products are from China and 20 percent from Mexico.
Barie said she expects Best Buy vendors to pass along some level of price increases to consumers based on the new 20 percent tariff on Chinese goods and 25 percent tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada.
The company said a 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods would decrease its year over year sales by 1 percent, but a 20 percent tariff would not necessarily move the needle to a 2 percent decline.
“We’ve never seen this kind of breadth of tariffs, and this of course impacts the whole industry. So it’s not just a Best Buy question, it is a broad industry question. And I say that because that makes the estimation of the impact all the harder,” Barry said.
“The giant wild card here, obviously, is how the consumers are going to react to the price increases, in light of a lot of price increases potentially throughout the year and a general consumer confidence that is showing a little signs of weakness at the moment,” said Best Buy CFO Matt Bilunas said on a recent call with analysts, according to CNBC.
Additionally Best Buy is planning to launch a third party marketplace (similar to Amazon’s version) by mid year.
See more at CNBC.
