KSHB 41 reporter Marlon Martinez covers Platte and Clay counties in Missouri. Share your story idea with Marlon.
As the Easter season approaches, florists in Kansas City are grappling with the financial strains of recent tariffs on imported goods.
Sheryl White, owner of The Fiddly Fig Flowers and Boutique located on 9716 Holmes Rd., says prices on imported flowers and supplies have surged in recent weeks.
“We spend right now about 5000 of these on fresh flowers," said White.
That's more than 50% of what she has been paying in the last 40 years since operating her flower shop.
“It started kind of chaos with COVID, and now it's chaos with tariffs, which are exceedingly chaotic," said White.
The price hikes are tied to new tariffs on goods imported from several countries—like Ecuador, Colombia, France, and Italy where many cut flowers are grown.
“The one I think ultimately will hurt us is China, at 145% we have to look for some different avenues to purchase vases and things like that," said White.
Despite the higher cost, White said she's willing to bite the bullet to not pass cost down to customers.
"We're just gonna have to keep ourselves lean and mean, not over order," said White. "A lot of weddings that we have booked, we've already booked at certain prices. We can't raise those, that's not fair.”
The policy is part of a broader move by the U.S. government to increase pressure on trade partners, but small business owners say they’re caught in the crossfire.
"We had the huge tariffs, which frightened me when I saw the numbers, but now we're back down," said White. "We might go up in 90 days. It's just hard to figure out, especially when you have all these different products coming from different country, countries with different tariff rates."
The 90-day pause on new tariffs—which is set to expire this summer— will provide a breather for shop owners, but Sheryl is afraid of the uncertainty past that time.
"I can't imagine the market bearing that's what we're concerned about, take on part of the tariffs ourselves and not pass the entire thing to our customer. But what can we afford to do? What happens in 90 days if they aren't paused or eliminated? It's, chaotic," said White.
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