Page 10 - BusinessWest August 18, 2025

said, adding that prices have remained remarkably, and unexpect-
edly, stable. “That’s the only explanation I can think of for why our
costs haven’t gone nuclear.”
The company has enough in its own warehouses to get through
the Big E, where it will have several locations, said Yee, adding that
what happens when the current warehouse stock is replaced with
post-tariff products remains to be seen.
“Who knows what will happen?” he said, adding that, if costs
rise, the Bean Group will have to think about adjusting its own
prices. “But we want to be as price-sensitive as we can; we want to
be affordable, and we want our guests to come back multiple times
a week, and a big part of that is the value aspect of it.”
Bonavita said almost everything at his storefront in Tower
Square, and everything shipped to customers elsewhere, includ-
ing the eastern part of the state (a growing part of this business),
arrived pre-tariffs. It will be September or October, he projects,
before the nature of the inventory shifts and prices are adjusted.
And while he will continue to order wines from dozens of other
countries (together, they make up roughly 35% of what he sells), he
fully expects movement toward domestics as the inevitable price
increases come. Meanwhile, like Yee, he said he will likely absorb
some of the hit to minimize the impact on the consumer.
“We wouldn’t be here without our customers, so I’ll do whatever
it takes to keep our customers,” he explained. “If that means we
work on a lesser margin, we’ll work on a lesser margin.”
Driving Forces
Sullivan said many — but certainly not all — the cars on area lots
were delivered pre-tariffs. That means consumers might find two
almost identical cars at a dealership with different price tags.
And, as he mentioned earlier, while the price tag on the post-
tariffs model might be higher, the monthly payment might — that’s
might — not be. And that’s just one of the many intriguing dynamics
within the auto industry as a once-fuzzy picture sharpens a bit.
“The tariff landscape is coming into clearer focus,” he told Busi-
nessWest. “Now, it’s about what the scale and the impact of the tar-
iffs will be and when it will all settle into something that’s predict-
able. We’re not home yet, knowing exactly where this whole thing
shakes out, but we’re getting closer.”
Elaborating, Sullivan said there will be more clarity in the
months and years to come on issues ranging from used car sales to
how long consumers hang on to their cars as the cost of maintain-
ing them rises because of tariffs on parts, many of which are made
in China.
Meanwhile, with new car sales, as well as the proverbial big
picture, there is more normalcy than a few months ago, when pan-
icked consumers were running to dealerships to beat the tariffs.
“Now, things have calmed down,” he said. “People are aware
that it’s not as bad as they feared; it’s still going to cost them more
to buy a car, but not as much as they feared. So right now, we’re
seeing a more normalized market than we’ve seen in a while.”
‘Normalized’ wouldn’t be a word to describe what’s happening in
the construction sector, said Fontaine, noting that tariffs are impact-
ing not only projects in progress — such as the new high schools
his company is building in East Longmeadow and Agawam — but
some initiatives on the drawing board.
“When the cost of materials is going up, that makes construc-
tion projects more difficult to to get financed — and more difficult
to make sense,” he explained, adding that this is more prevalent on
the private side of ledger than on the public side. “And a lot of peo-
ple are in the wait-and-see phase because of the uncertainty with
the economy.”
For construction firms, the challenge is to find ways to minimize
the impact through use of more domestically produced materials
and other strategies to keep projects on budget.
“We’re spending a lot of time trying to protect ourselves and our
clients from the impact of them, and I think we’ve been generally
successful with that,” Fontaine said. “We’ve pushed a lot of things to
be imported from places that are not impacted by tariffs or made in
America. We’re doing everything we can to mitigate costs, but it’s a
hot issue in construction right now.”
And in many other sectors as well. BW
“I don’t know for
sure, but I think
that what our
distributors did,
as these tariff
talks were going
on, was bulk up
their warehouses
just to get people
along for six or
seven months in
anticipation that
the tariff talks
would blow over
and things would
get settled.”
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