How One Tampa Store Was Blindsided by Tariff Costs

Before this year, EndlessPens — a four-person stationery shop in Tampa — operated with stable, predictable tariff rates. Just a few percentage points here and there. Nothing that disrupted planning or threatened the business.

That changed overnight.

In April, tariffs on the pens and stationery they import from multiple countries jumped from 2.75%–4% to 15%–25%. The timing couldn’t have been worse: the company had already placed orders, paid deposits, and locked in contracts months earlier. There was no way to stop the shipments. No way to renegotiate. No way to prepare.

As the owner put it:

“We are now absorbing the additional tariff costs out-of-pocket… roughly 15% in unplanned expenses on a $3 million turnover.”

The math is brutal: about $300,000 in unexpected tariff bills — a massive hit for a four-employee business.

This isn’t a story about luxury goods or optional purchases. It’s a story about how emergency tariff authority, applied suddenly and without warning, can erase margins, drain cash flow, and destabilize the livelihoods of the people working behind the counter of a neighborhood shop.

EndlessPens is one of more than 800 small businesses in the We Pay the Tariffs coalition speaking publicly about the financial strain created by these abrupt policy shifts. Their experience underscores a simple reality: small businesses cannot absorb tariff shocks of this magnitude and still survive.

📢 If your small business has been directly affected by tariffs, we invite you to join WPTT. Sign our open letter to lawmakers here. Your voice helps show the real human and financial impact behind every tariff announcement.