Tariffs! The most enjoyable read you’ll have on them all day. (Because we’re somewhat ignoring the larger macroeconomic effects to focus just on boots!)
[This has a US perspective since that’s where I live and understand best]
First, Here’s How Tariffs Essentially Work
1. A company (retail shop, brand, whatever) imports a product from a foreign nation. There’s the price the US company pays (wholesale), which then gets marked up by the retailer or brand (generally 100%+ for most products, often much less in high-end footwear), before being sold to you.
As of today (April 4, 2025), to get that product released from the ports, the US retailer or brand will have to pay between 10% and 54% of the product’s wholesale price to the US government, on TOP of the wholesale price. To be clear: the US company pays the tariffs.
2. If YOU buy something directly from a brand or retailer in a foreign country, YOU may pay the tariff—at least some of the time, but possibly soon, all of the time. Or, technically the shipping company may pay said tariff to get it over the border, and then charge you the tariff cost between 10% and 54% on delivery. Same rates. Except sometimes they charge you a “processing fee” on top! Fun.
US Companies Really Have Three Choices on How to Play This
1) Hang on tight, keep prices the same, and wait things out hoping tariffs get reversed quickly enough that they don’t suffer major damage to their business and everything just returns to “normal.” It’s possible! I mean anything’s possible, which is why I said “it’s possible.” But again, there’s that potential major damage thing.
2) Just say fuck it we can’t let that damage happen, and go ahead and raise prices in the short term—but that of course needs to be weighed against the potential major damage created by customers saying “yeah that’s too expensive for me now” and seeing sales decline.
3) Espouse an outlook that says “ok look we’re just going to absorb the tariff costs” while maintaining current prices. From one perspective, a product might become more competitive in its space if its cost is lower than those of other competitive products that see a price hike. So hey you might sell more of them! You also might not. And let’s not forget that businesses work on margins, aka the gap between their costs (not just the products they sell, but overhead, and marketing, and healthcare costs for employees, and you name it). If that margin decreases, even a jump in sales volume might not make up for it.
As you might be able to see, there’s no great clear route for most footwear makers and retailers right now. Raise prices and potentially see sales dip? Keep prices steady but take a serious margin haircut? Reduce overhead by laying off the people who…make the boots? Or pack and ship them? Or photograph them so you can even see what they look like? Not the best list of choices.
Any route chosen could potentially disrupt the operating model a business currently exists under. Worst case: no more great footwear company.
The Thing About Great Footwear That’s Different From Other Products and Businesses
I had a chat with someone this morning about how the book publishing industry underwent some serious “enshittification” under the initial 10% tariffs on goods from China (where millions of books are printed) back about 5-8 years go.
The general idea of enshittification is: the thing might look kinda the same, but it’s just made…worse. For books, that meant cheaper paper, cheaper ink, cheaper artwork, less really interesting grabby—and collectible and treasurable—bells and whistles on covers. And then they sold around the same price. The publisher was able to cover the tariff hit, and maintain margin, simply by making something that wasn’t as good.
But who cares! It’s just a book, right? It still has words you can read, and if you’re careful the pages won’t rip.
Not really the same case with high-quality boots and shoes, which are functional performance devices. Functional performance devices that can effect your foot and general health! If a car gets enshittified with worse cupholders or other interior trim stuff, that’s not great…but it still drives. If a car gets enshittified via an engine that wants to blow up all the time and shoots cylinders into your heart, well that’s really quite bad.
The defining quality of the footwear we care about here is that it’s made by people who refuse to enshittify their products. They believe in doing it the “right” way, without cheaping out on components, or last or patterning development, or whatever. And they know they have customers who value exactly that perseverance towards something that’s just excellent—and therefore worth the price.
Many a once-great brand has fallen prey to enshittification; knowledgeable customers simply stop buying what they make. Which means if you’ve created a company or product based on the idea that it’s going to be really good 1) you can’t cut corners to save money behind the scenes and sell it at the same price, and 2) you’ll be figured out by your customer base in a heartbeat. So, not really a viable route.
So…Prices Are Probably Going to Go Up? But Not For Made-in-USA Footwear, Right?
The reality is, all prices are inevitably going to go up, in many cases significantly—and US-made footwear is not immune.
I spoke yesterday with a very small US boot manufacturer who already saw a 20+% increase on their Made-in-USA outsoles weeks before the new April 2 tariffs hit. This (presumably) isn’t price gouging; the US is not exactly farming rubber, so the raw material has to be brought in…and tariffed.
And that’s only one part of the supply chain. You can apply this to any number of components a maker might use. Some are imported (and tariffed), some are made in the US with raw materials from overseas (which are tariffed). Some are made exclusively in the US, with 100% US raw materials, but that’s the fringe case here. In this excellent (and quick) video, Andrew Chen of 3Sixteen estimates that a $10 increase in raw materials could translate to a $40-$50 increase in retail cost.
Oh and most footwear manufacturing machinery is made overseas. You get the picture.
So What’s the Move in This Environment for Someone Who Loves Great Footwear?
Buckle up! Definitely buckle up. And realize that things are DEFINITELY going to change.
Also, and this is always important: don’t go broke buying boots and shoes! (We actually have a guide for how that, seriously.) Especially because it’s hard to see how these tariffs don’t effect almost everything you purchase at some point—from the things you want, to the things you need to just kinda live. Those are important.
From there, figure out what you really love, and who you really want to support, and keep doing that if you can—with the understanding that they are all working overtime right now to figure out how to keep prices down, and keep their businesses solvent long-term (and almost definitely not scheming how to price-gouge you…margins in top-end shoes and boots are abnormally slim to begin with).
Understanding great footwear has always involved understanding the cost structures behind making something of true quality, and why they’re worth more than “normal” shoes. It’s always been about believing in something that most people don’t, placing a high value on that, and paying for something that’s more than just a commodity—something with soul and integrity and history and a whole bunch of other intangibles. Now it also involves understanding how an already tenuous model is being rocked like a rowboat in a tsunami.