Popular budget retailers Shein and Temu are following through on plans to raise prices due to President Trump’s tariffs, with some products more than doubling in cost in recent days.
The average price of the top 100 beauty and health products on Shein jumped 51% last week, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News. Some items saw even steeper hikes: a 10-piece set of kitchen towels surged 377 percent, while eyebrow gel rose nearly 200 percent.
Meanwhile, Chinese retail app Temu appears to be passing on “nearly all” of President Trump’s new import taxes to U.S. consumers, Bloomberg said. The company has started adding “import charges” that, in some cases, exceed the value of the product.
American consumers had been bracing for the changes after both companies announced plans to raise prices earlier this month. In nearly identical statements, Shein and Temu said their operating expenses had gone up due to “recent changes in global trade rules and tariffs.”
Those price changes started April 25, a week before the end of the so-called “de minimis” rule, which let low-value packages skip certain customs paperwork and enter the country duty-free.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have pushed to reform the de minimis provision in recent years, warning that the exemption makes it easier to smuggle drugs into the country.
Trump scrapped the exemption for goods from China and Hong Kong and slapped a 145 percent tariff on many Chinese imports.
Credit: THEHILL