💸 Oof, 104% tariff.

Good morning, eComm legend.

First, there was Liberation Day: Trump’s April 2 mic drop that sounded more like a reality show finale than an economic policy shift. Now, it’s the sequel: Tariffageddon 2: Import Boogaloo. This week, we’re looking down the barrel of a proposed 104% tariff on certain Chinese imports. That’s not a typo. One-zero-four. As in: your supplier just became your most expensive friend (and not in the “always orders truffle fries” kind of way).

And it’s not theory anymore. It’s happening just after midnight. These duties are going live, even as talks with other trade partners kick off (aka the group chat is open but the damage is already done). So now it’s game time: rework your offers, reroute your sourcing, and get your site converting like your margins depend on it (because they do). This issue’s about playing offense, even when policy’s playing dodgeball.

In today’s agenda:

• 💸 CTRL + Convert: Allbird’s popup, decoded

• 🍪 Tariffs: Suit up, bring snacks and spreadsheets

• 🕶️ X-Ray of the Week: Mavi’s $1.4B growth engine

• ✂ Shopify + Contentful: Copy-pasting content is DONE

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Tariffs are back, baby: On April 2, Trump declared “Liberation Day” (which definitely sounds like a Call of Duty DLC), and with it came sweeping new tariffs. For you, this isn’t just politics: it’s your margins getting hit like they mouthed off in a group chat. A 10% base tariff on most imports, plus chaotic add-ons for countries like China (54%), Vietnam (46%), and India (26%). That cute necklace supplier from Cambodia is now 49% more expensive, and it’s not because they added diamonds.

Inventory roulette: If you’re sourcing from Asia (or honestly anywhere that isn’t your uncle’s garage) your product costs probably just got body slammed. That means it’s time to do the thing you’ve been putting off since Q3 2023: open that spreadsheet. Look at SKUs, look at country of origin (COO tags matter now), and rerun landed cost calculations. Products that were profit champs last month might now be loss leaders in disguise (the Usher at the Super Bowl of your catalog: high hopes, mid results).

Reprice or cry: You’ve got two choices: pass the extra costs onto your customers (brave) or eat the cost and cry into your Shopify dashboard (also valid). Here’s the tactical stuff:

• Use a tool like Prisync or Intelligynce to spy on competitor pricing shifts

• Test tiered pricing or bundles with Bundle Bear to sneak in higher AOV without scaring off shoppers

• Run a limited “pre-tariff” sale with Shopify Launchpad to move old stock (call it nostalgia, it works)

• Consider a domestic supplier with Accio for your top 3 SKUs (not fun, but sometimes necessary)

Shipping whiplash: Even if your product isn’t on the tariff naughty list, your packaging, inserts, or even bubble wrap probably are (yes, even the cute ones with pink glitter). Costs for shipping containers are inching up too, especially from heavily-targeted ports. If your 3PL hasn’t pinged you yet, they will. Flexport can be a solid add to your stack. Pro tip: lock in freight rates now like you’re booking Coachella tickets with a scalper.

This isn’t a one-time thing. Trump already hinted at a possible 50% China tariff this week, like a sequel nobody asked for. If you’re heavily reliant on one country (no shade), now is a really good time to start hedging.

Sources: whitehouse.gov, whitehouse.gov, cnbc.com

Sometimes syncing content with your Shopify store used to feel like trying to get your Spotify playlist to work on a Tamagotchi. Now Contentful and Shopify are holding hands, skipping into the future with a shiny new partnership that actually... works. Less copy-paste chaos, more doing-your-job-and-leaving (or at least pretending to). And for free.

No more content chaos: Contentful now talks directly to your Shopify store, which means your product descriptions, blogs, and weirdly specific promotional landing pages (yes, the one about biodegradable llama socks) all live in harmony. Instead of bouncing between ten tabs and rage-Googling “Shopify content sync workaround,” everything’s centralized. One dashboard, less clicking, more chilling.

AI to convert more: With AI Actions and Variant Generation, you can spin out content that matches your brand tone without sounding like a robot with a hangover. And it’s not just product copy. It’ll help you localize, personalize, and translate without needing a polyglot and a time machine.

Tactical moves:

• Install the Contentful app inside your Shopify Liquid Storefront

• Subscribe to the Free plan.

• Use the Sync App to pull in your product, blog, and long-form content

• Activate AI Variant Generation for high-performing product pages

• Localize with automatic translation for each market you serve

• Connect Klaviyo or Emarsys with Contentful to juice up your personalization game

Faster to launch campaigns. Easier to test ideas. Better than updating the wrong version of your homepage at 2AM. And it starts with a free plan. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Sources: businesswire.com

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* Executive Cheat Sheet

• Tariff: A tariff is a tax imposed by a government on imported goods to raise revenue or protect domestic industries.

• Landed Cost: Landed cost is the total price of a product once it has arrived at a buyer’s doorstep, including the product cost, shipping, duties, and any other fees.

• 3PL (Third-Party Logistics): A 3PL is a company that handles logistics services—like warehousing, shipping, and fulfillment—on behalf of another business.

• AOV (Average Order Value): AOV is a metric that calculates the average amount of money spent each time a customer places an order on a website.