• hdsrob@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Absolutely. …

    I own a software company, but we sell computer hardware to about half of our clients as well. We passed the increase in hardware to our clients as our suppliers passed it down to us.

    But I’m not an importer, and my main supplier imports about 50% of what we buy from them. The rest they buy from manufacturers that import their own product, or importers (or possibly even wholesalers that buy from importers), and we buy some stuff at retail, since we just don’t need.

    We absolutely struggle to be competitive, and more so now than before. We don’t have VC money, or credit card processor backing that many of our competitors do, so can’t give hardware away at below cost, or for free. At the end of the day, we decreased our markup to help keep prices down, knowing that we’ll ultimately make it up on software licensing over the next few years.

    Even then, our customers are all businesses that paid the increased tariff at the end of the day, so how do they get their taxes back, since most people are suggesting returning taxes to individuals.

    The whole thing is a freaking mess, without any real good answer that will actually make everyone happy.