Last night my wife and I dropped 2500 dollars on cell phones. Only about 2000 of which where the actual phones. (I phone 16 promax and Iphone 16) 130 or so was taxes and the rest was accessories. Cases, screen protectors, charging cables, chargers. As the Iphone 16 uses the USB C connectors and fast chargers we needed several new cables.
The phones were in stock, available and there had been no price increase. However, we were not able to get all of the charging cables and charging blocks we wanted. We will probably need to find them on TEMU.
The tariffs pushed this purchase. My Iphone 12 mini ceased to focus the camera and my wife’s Iphone 12 Promax was coming up on a battery replacement so we went ahead and bought new. Had there been no foreseen disruption in product, I would have kept the the Iphone 12 mini for another year and the wife would have had the battery replaced and kept hers for another year. Maybe two.
But these were getting old and we did not want to be caught trying to bid against others for a limited product.
So those decisions probably increased what they call the velocity of money. Which would tend to push off the advent of a recession (GDP is equal to the velocity of money times the money supply).
iirc, the “smart” phone I bought from TracFone last year was about $30. It came with an AC charging block.
Best Buy felt motivated to send me a coupon for some bux off of a purchase, so a lighter socket charging cord for use in my car cost something like $5-$6. My HP calculator went west a couple years ago, but it’s case is exactly the right width and thickness for the phone, with only a tiny bit of the phone sticking out of the end of the case.
Actually, the pulling forward of demand due to people with stuff to sell provoking a lemming stampede with “beat the tariff, it will never be this cheap again” hype, will probably make Q3 look like a recession, when it actually isn’t.
I was trying to point out that we pulled next years consumption forward. I also was noting that while there were plenty of Iphones, Apple flew them in, the accessories were running out of stock.
I was at the dealer yesterday, having the oil changed in my wagon. The service writeup guy was on the phone, and frustrated. After he hung up, he muttered “wiper blades are backordered?”
The insane thing is the margin on wiper blades is probably as fat as it was on the small parts at RS. One guy was really desperate to sell me wiper blades. I can’t remember if I was in Firestone for a free tire rotation, or somewhere for an oil change, and the guy comes running up to me “hey, you need new wiper blades”. I said “I put new blades on that car only a couple weeks ago”, which was true. He shrugged, and said “you need new wiper blades”. “NO!”. Sheesh.