What’s The Deal With Tariffs?

If you are a customer outside of the US, the only thing that will vaguely effect you is a focus on upcoming releases being initially stocked in America. Please feel free to disregard this message! 

Whew. Ok everyone, buckle up because this is gonna be a long one. Where do I even start? I guess let’s start with the most important thing. 

What Does This Mean for YOU?

In short, it means 2 things:

First and foremost, if you want to order anything from the legacy collection, or anything that is currently being shipped from China (so Hawaiian shirts and knit sweaters) you should do so now. I’ll explain why later.

Second, if you don’t plan to order now, and instead plan to receive these orders past the dates of May 2nd, or June 1st 2025, expect to have to pay $25-$50 per shirt in import tax when you buy those shirts. This is based on date of receipt, not date ordered. There is, quite literally, nothing I can do to prevent this, as will also be explained later. 

From this point on, it’s just me yapping. Feel free to stop reading here if you’d like. 

Why Does it Cost That Much?

Consider reading this statement from The White House regarding specifics, but I will summarize the important points. 

- Starting May 2nd, packages under $800 in value arriving from China will be subject to import Tariffs starting at $25, or the proposed 54% tariff, depending on which is higher. In June, this will increase to $50 per item or the proposed tariff.

Let’s go over why this matters. Gachaloha is a very small, single person owned and operated business. I sell to a niche, being tropical shirts, within an even smaller niche, being gacha games. 2024 was my first full year in business, and I had to do a lot of experimenting to see what people would like, and learn to make appealing designs, as my background is not in apparel or graphic design. 

This meant many of my shirts, even to this day, have sold less than 50, or sometimes 25 units. 

There’s something else important to note. 1/4th of all Gachaloha customers are located in Japan and South Korea. 

I value these customers deeply. I have received nothing but kind words, invitations to visit, and wonderful pictures of them enjoying their shirts at events.

It was because of these customers, and these order quantities that Gachaloha partnered with a manufacturer that supported something called “Print On Demand.”

This is why nothing on my store goes out of stock, and this is also why customers WORLDWIDE have been able to get free shipping on any aloha shirt order.

The downside is, now the government views YOU as the importer of goods from China- not me… and they will charge you accordingly. 

I intend to keep drop-shipping open for International customers. Frankly, Korea and Japan are not in great spots economically. The last thing customers there need is a $30 shipping charge on top of a shirt that is already above their market rates. But, for those of us in America, you're going to be eating additional cost, specifically on drop-shipped shirts. For new shirts, however, I have been working on ways to mitigate this. That brings us to:

What Does This Mean for Gachaloha?

If you want to kill Gachaloha, you’ll have to kill me; and I am a persistent cockroach. 

Over the last few months, I’ve spent hundreds of dollars testing out manufacturers to increase shirt quality, decrease the price, and even avoid these very tariffs.

Unfortunately, the countries I tried were:

• Thailand
• Vietnam
• More affordable Chinese options

and I will not lie to you. The Chinese won by a good margin in quality, cost, and communication. Considering my other options actually got even higher tariffs- there’s a good chance I’ll stick with them depending on how the ongoing trade war develops. At time of writing, even after the tariffs, I can match the production prices my shirts currently have with cotton fabric so long as I can meet the minimums. This means if you’re buying a pre-ordered shirt, I’m paying the tariff when I receive it, and you don’t have to worry about it.

Due to the added risks of making my MAIN product, and the fact that drop shipping to my MAIN audience will be financially infeasible, Gachaloha will be doing 2 notable things.

1. Pivoting to local stock batch releases. This means the pre-order structure you see now- and depending if we go too low or exceed the goal, I may keep some around my tiny apartment to sell later. This means faster shipping times and better sales, because I will physically need to get rid of stuff. But for the most part- we’re in full FOMO mode. You pre-order, or you miss out.
2.  Emphasizing products other than aloha shirts. Since they’re going to be so expensive, and pose such a business risk each time I make new ones, I’ll need to do more accessories. Glassware, stickers, enamel pins, keychains, etc. Anything that can be done in America will be! Each of those that I mentioned actually already ARE made in America. Oh, and the tee shirts are printed here. Gachaloha has always made an effort to make what we can in the states. The key words there were what we can, which I’ll go into below.

Why Not Just Make Aloha Shirts in America?

It really just isn’t possible. But in this section I’ll outline exactly why it isn’t possible. 

So, remember how I mentioned that our shirts sometimes sell less than 50? Well, 50 is a pretty standard minimum order quantity for manufacturers OUTSIDE of the US. Of course, I did reach out to American manufacturers, so what was theirs? 100? 150? Higher my friend. 

The absolute minimum I’ve found from any of the 6 manufacturers (3 of them were in Honolulu!) I was able to speak with was… drum roll please…

800 Units

For reference, Konoka’s shirt, the Valkyrie Vice, my best seller, has still not even sold 350 units. So if I was restricted to American manufacturing, Gachaloha would simply not exist. Anyone else who is an American company claiming to be a manufacturer is actually outsourcing to China. Trust me- I’ve asked them all. The real kicker is that even at 800 units, the production cost is $10-$20 higher than my current production cost, before calculating in tariffs on imported fabrics.

So, USA bulk isn’t an option. But wait- what happened to good old print on demand?

I’m so glad you asked! Well, there’s one I was able to find here in the states that does print on demand cut and sew. However, production cost WITH the wholesaler discount is $100 USD. And that’s without any margin. But what is margin? Profit margin of course! As a general rule of thumb, anything you buy has a production cost around 1/2 of, or 1/3rd of what you paid to buy it. While that may sound extreme, in my case it has to pay for: 

• Site fees 
• Artists
• Marketing 
• Returns/Size Exchanges
• % of profit for collab partners

so just imagine what a REAL business has to pay for…
Typically I need to sell more than 10 shirts before I actually earn a dollar of the sales, but for shirts with more expensive art or marketing, it can be closer to 20. So, if I sell 25… that’s not much. I didn’t mention, but Gachaloha actually sells below standard margin rates because I don’t hate my customers. 

So. Made in America- same business model. What’s the price per unit? Well if I was being fair, $140 minimum. If you can afford $140 shirts, let me know, although I expect their price to increase due to fabric being imported too. If enough of you say yes, I will actually work on adding this, as they can do linen  and silk in addition to cotton.

If you’ve read this far- thank you. Despite the circumstances, I really do enjoy talking about this project, and the business it has evolved into. I have so much more to say, but I think I’ve rambled more than enough for now. I love all of you! Last year, when I was unable to find work despite my degree, you kept me afloat. I truly was living the dream- and I’d like to do it again. But I could’ve never done it, and can never do it without YOU, and YOUR support for stupid things I feel passionate about. 

I wish you all the best, and I hope despite the challenges Gachaloha continues to grow. I mean, keeping stock, upgrading my fabric and diversifying my products should be a good thing, right?

Either way, I will fight tooth and nail to ensure it does. I have spent months working on the upcoming collabs, and I cannot let them down. I’ll sew these damn shirts myself if I have to. Your support means the world to me, and I hope you’ll continue to support me despite the challenges to come. 

- Palm Treeman