A Brockville comics and collectibles shop says the ongoing trade dispute is forcing it to rethink where it buys and sells products, after U.S. sales dried up and Canadian counter-tariffs added new costs and uncertainty. H&T Comics and Collectables opened its storefront less than a year ago, but owner Tracey Carr says tariffs have already had a major impact on the business. “We have a lot of repeat customers that would purchase all the time from us and now we have nothing that we can send to them just because the cost is unbelievable,” Carr said. “We were doing approximately $30,000 in sales to the United States and that completely dropped.” Carr says some customers refused shipments after seeing the added costs, leaving the business to pay shipping both ways and absorb the loss. “It was too much of a risk for us because we’re not a big business and we don’t have a lot of room for lost product or profits,” she said. Now, Carr says Canadian counter-tariffs are adding cost and uncertainty to some products coming north from U.S. suppliers. “We are a little bit hesitant in buying anything because at this time, we’re not sure how that’s going to affect us with brokerage fees and tariffs,” she said. “Ultimately, we don’t want to pass those costs on to our customers because we try to keep our costs reasonable, but if it comes to being too much of a burden, then we will have to raise prices.” The store has since stopped selling to the U.S. and pulled back from American suppliers, instead looking overseas for inventory. “Basically, all of our Pokémon we currently sell is Japanese,” Carr said. “The price for the Japanese Pokémon is a lot less money for us. We buy it directly from Japan and there are no tariffs on the product.” 53,000 Canadian small businessses impacted by tariff war: CFIB The Canadian Federation of Independent Business says that kind of pivot is becoming more common as small businesses look for ways to keep customers and diversify their supply chains. CFIB estimates more than 53,000 small businesses are directly affected by U.S. tariffs, Canadian counter-tariffs or both. “Some are telling us that it’s something they can’t manage for a long period of time,” said Corinne Pohlmann, executive vice-president for advocacy at CFIB. “It’s a real challenge now to figure out how to either keep the customers or figure out ways to diversify. It’s a real transition point right now.” CFIB is calling on the government for more support for small businesses to help weather the trade war. “They did broaden supports very recently, just in the last couple of weeks. But even then, you still have to have at least $1 million in revenue to even access those supports that are meant for small and medium sized companies and there is a lot of small, medium sized companies that revenues are less than $1 million and so that’s an area that’s completely neglected,” she said. As for Carr, she says there is only so much a small business can absorb, especially as customers watch their wallets. She says shopping local can make a big difference for small businesses like hers. “I hear from people, you know, ‘we could order that on Amazon or from Walmart,’ and for us, this business, it means a lot to us,” she said. “But the more people that support us, we can pay our rent, we can pay our utilities, we can keep the business going because it isn’t cheap.”
