Tariffs are already hitting baby products hard
Manufacturers are already rolling out significant price increases on strollers, car seats and more in response to tariffs. Now, CEOs within the baby products space are taking urgent action to educate their customers about the potential fallout and lobby Washington for a reprieve.
Baby products is one of the industries that has been hit hardest by tariffs on China, as an estimated 97% of strollers that are imported to the U.S. are manufactured in China. Last week, one of the major players in the space, UppaBaby, announced that it would soon be hiking prices across many items. That ushered in a wide swath of baby boutiques running blog posts or publishing videos warning customers exactly how much prices could go up.
Now, registry platform Babylist has paid for a full-page ad that’s running in the Washington Post on Wednesday that calls for an “immediate reprieve from tariffs on essential baby products.” It says that tariffs essentially amount to a “baby tax,” given that things like strollers and car seats are essentials for parents, not nice-to-haves. The ad is signed by Babylist CEO Natalie Gordon, as well as other CEOs in the baby industry, including Chelsea Hirschorn, founder and CEO of Friday Baby, and Ann Crady Weiss, co-founder and CEO of Hatch Baby.
“This moment calls for the entire baby industry to come together because families are counting on us,” Gordon said in a follow-up email to Modern Retail. “If supporting growing families is truly a priority, providing tariff relief on essential baby products is a clear and actionable way to show it.”
Many of these items are already expensive; according to a blog post published by Albee Baby, the price of an UppaBaby Aria infant car seat will go from $349.99 to $499.99 effective May 5. A Cybex Coya stroller will go from $499.95 to $549.95 effective May 1.
Gordon of Babylist said that, as a result, “parents are looking at over $1,000 in added costs just to cover the basics.”
During the previous Trump administration, critical safety products, which included many baby items, were exempted from tariffs. So this recent round of tariffs, in which nearly all imports from China are subject to a 145% tariff, with no end in sight, caught many in the industry off guard. The Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association sent a letter to the Trump Administration on April 19 urging for critical safety products to be excluded from tariffs, similar to what was implemented in 2019, but so far, that hasn’t happened.
In the meantime, business owners in the space are trying to communicate as much as possible with customers about what products may be increasing in price and when. Elizabeth Mahon, the owner of a Washington, D.C.-based baby store called Three Littles, has been posting videos on Instagram about the Uppababy price increases specifically and doing more general mythbusting about tariffs and who pays for them.
Because some of those videos have gone semi-viral — Three Littles has roughly 17,000 followers — Mahon said she’s seen an uptick in customer inquiries related to tariffs.
“A lot of people have been reaching out, being like, ‘Hey, when is this going up in price?’ Some people are even asking if they should get a car seat for a child that they’re not even pregnant with, which has been wild and is a bummer, because I don’t want people to have to rush into these decisions,” she said.
Mahon said sales at her store have “been through the roof,” which normally would be a great problem to have. But, “because the sales are so extreme, they are throwing the supply chain way off,” she added. Some of the Uppababy items at her store, for example, have already sold out and won’t be restocked until late July.
Elle Wang, founder and CEO of Emilia George, a boutique with locations in Atlanta and New York that specializes in postpartum products, said her business has seen a spike in baby clothing sales compared to last month.
Wang said Emilia George so far hasn’t raised prices — her business carries items like diapers, formula, and some strollers and carriers, in addition to its own private label clothing. She’s said she’s waiting to see how the pricing will continue to change from her suppliers over the next couple months, and, she added, “We are definitely keeping our ears open to see if customers raise any concerns in advance.”
That’s the playbook many CEOs in the business space are trying to follow right now: Stay in close communication with customers, and be prepared to make big decisions quickly.
But it’s a precarious environment to be in.
Mahon said that, right now, she’s having a lot of conversations with suppliers, trying to figure out what products to stock up on and which products she may have to find alternatives for. Representatives from the brands she carries have called her up to tell her they can no longer afford to import their products into the U.S.
“I have had to make some really big decisions to buy a lot of inventory and then just cross my fingers that people are going to want it [later this year] ” Mahon said.