Thriving with tariffs and beyond: Focus areas for a tech-driven retail tariff plan

By Jessica Grisolia - Director of Retail Industry Solutions

Tariffs are going to hurt, one way or another, so act now to offset costs and protect your business and customers as much as you can.

Tariff resilience strategy

• Target workflows in the ‘automation sweet spot’: manual tasks that are most impacted and have a low barrier to automation, often via existing tech. For example, price verification, restocking, and receiving.
• Refocus store associates away from tedious scanning and inventory workflows and onto customer interactions to boost loyalty.

As trade policy swings unpredictably, retailers face a stark dilemma: accept thinner margins, risk declining sales, or, in some cases, endure both.

But rising tariffs don’t have to force a straight-up choice between eroding margins and bumping prices.

This blog explores how to create a retail tariff plan that leverages readily available technology to help offset some of the added costs, without relying on shoppers who are already feeling the pinch of inflation. Think automating workflows, enhancing store associate efficiency, and building loyalty that helps cushion retailers against present and future external shocks.

The full force of the Trump tariffs will take effect soon, with big consequences forecast for economies, businesses, and households.

A fair amount of fear and uncertainty exists, as illustrated by this data from leading analysts and media outlets.

• Yale budget lab suggests household costs could increase by $3,800/year
• IMF predicts the US economy will grow 1.8% this year, down from its previous estimate of 2.7%
• Numerator research says 83% of U.S. consumers anticipate making changes to their shopping habits in response to tariffs
• NRF expects GDP growth to decline just below 2% in 2025, down from 2.8% in 2024 and below the trend of the past few years

The tariff net is wide. All retailers face different degrees of the same issue: absorbing higher import costs and squeezing already thin margins, or passing them on to customers and risking a drop in demand.

But as the saying goes, with every challenge comes an opportunity.

By shifting the focus from things out of your control to what you can control (i.e. your operations), a tariff response plan starts to emerge.

What can retailers do to combat tariff increases?

Retailers can use the tariffs as a catalyst to reengineer their operations and hunt down inefficiencies to offset costs, including:

• Optimizing retail technology investments for greater ROI (see here for a handy 4-step framework)
• Finding faster ways to complete workflows or automating them
• Eliminating costly errors and waste

By reducing waste, improving productivity, and better leveraging technology, retailers can mitigate the impact of higher import costs and achieve some quick wins, especially through the devices and employee apps already deployed across their operations.

Reducing long-term operating costs allows for sustainable margins without having to raise checkout prices.

Retail tariff plan first step – pinpoint your automation sweet spot

The key to identifying the workflows that retailers can best automate for maximum efficiency is finding the sweet spot: manual tasks that can be optimized without requiring new tools or a significant investment of resources.

Making minor tweaks to workflows with a low barrier to automation, such as how inventory is received and how shelves are replenished, adds up and makes a significant difference in easing margin pressure.

From our work with hundreds of retailers globally, here are the three workflows that we see most impacted by tariffs and why, along with some examples of tech-based efficiency gains.

1. Price verification

Volatile tariffs mean volatile prices, especially when you consider the extent to which goods are imported.

Here’s a table on the pricing tasks impacted.

It means more updates, more often, with accuracy paramount. And manually scanning and checking one by one doesn’t scale effectively.

Electronic shelf labels (ESLs) offer a great route to automating pricing updates. However, they aren’t suitable for all stores, and products and barcodes still need to be paired, as well as prices and promotions verified. Here, advanced software scanning and real-time feedback, when deployed on existing smart devices, can offer efficiency savings in both time and accuracy.

Example tech-based efficiency gains

Staples Canada uses smartphones and multi-barcode scanning to capture large areas of shelves simultaneously and utilize real-time feedback via augmented reality (AR) to identify incorrect prices. In the first few weeks, it saved 18,500 associate hours across 20,000 weekly price checks and ensured 100% price accuracy.

2. Movement of goods

As tariffs drive up the cost of goods, the ripple effects extend far beyond pricing; they also put intense pressure on retail replenishment and restocking workflows. Every inventory decision now carries more financial risk. Retailers must rethink how they manage stock levels or risk tying up capital in the wrong inventory.

Here’s a breakdown of the key replenishment and restocking tasks and why they matter more than ever:

A key indicator of a well-performing store restocking process, on-shelf availability (OSA) is crucial to get right, as it impacts both customer satisfaction and sales. But manually eyeballing shelves or gap scanning can take vast amounts of time.

With historical sales data becoming less predictive, the onus is on obtaining timely data and more of it.

Fitted with the right data capture and shelf intelligence technology, existing store infrastructure, such as employee smart devices, fixed cameras, and even robots, can be used to capture shelf data. Taking a fraction of the time and, in some cases, completely freeing up store associates to focus on resolving issues, such as missing items, rather than looking for them.

Example tech-based gains

A large European grocer implemented a shelf intelligence solution that uses fixed cameras to capture shelf images and analyze them using advanced AI object recognition, aiming to boost out-of-stock availability (OSA). With prioritized alerts guiding associates to address shelf issues, availability increased to over 95%, and sales rose by approximately 2% within six months.

3. Receiving

Receiving workflows are already becoming more challenging. Retailers are stocking up on certain goods, creating bottlenecks for a process that is either done one by one or not at all. Some retailers choose to only scan and check a low percentage of goods entering the store due to the time it takes. Errors here can have repercussions for pricing and product availability.

Going forward, as tariffed inventory starts to arrive, retailers will need greater scrutiny— and therefore more time —for those pallets and PO orders.

Not doing these tasks effectively can skew inventory counts, sending wrong replenishment signals and cost data that can break regular store sales and omnichannel fulfillment.

Equipping store associates with the right tools can speed up receiving workflows by up to 10x. Simultaneously scanning and counting goods allows for checking more orders, reducing the amount handled on faith, and stopping errors at the gate.

Example tech-based efficiency gains

A large luxury fashion retailer deployed batch scanning and counting capabilities, reducing pallet scanning time by 50% and improving inventory accuracy across its operations.

A chance to lock in loyalty

Time pressures on store associates won’t only come from inventory-based tasks. Shoppers will likely be more demanding of their time as well.

Expect questions about which goods are subject to tariffs, decoding price jumps, and increased demand for product information as they search for substitutes.

So, automating tedious tasks and sparing store associates from toil work carries a second advantage: customer loyalty.

By freeing them from some tasks, they can better focus on customer support and helping shoppers navigate the changes in prices and assortments in-store.

This is even more vital for retailers whose stores and the experiences within them are key differentiators, such as those in the fashion industry.

Expert assistance and consultative selling are big loyalty drivers. See the informative chart below from McKinsey’s latest state of fashion report, which illustrates this.

Data shows that loyal customers are less likely to be affected by higher prices and are also more likely to spend more overall with that retailer.

• 88% of customers who trust a store are likely to return as repeat buyers, underscoring the importance of positive in-store experiences, which are frequently shaped by frontline staff
• Loyal customers are 64% more likely to make more frequent purchases, and 31% are more willing to pay a higher price.
• 75% of shoppers are likely to spend more after receiving high-quality service from store staff

Your store associates must have the tools and access to information to answer questions confidently, delight customers, and boost loyalty, but that’s a whole different topic we explore here.

So, for now, we’ll keep the focus of the retail tariff plan on what you can control, using automation and efficiency gains to mitigate tariff uncertainty for your workers, customers, and business.