This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jared Fisher, the CEO and founder of Escape Adventures, an adventure tourism agency, and several bikes shops in Nevada and Utah. Fisher also ran as a Republican for governor of Nevada in 2018. This story has been edited for length and clarity.
I’m a Republican business owner who’s been running an adventure travel business for more than 30 years. We operate multi-day motor tours and road bike tours with hiking, mostly in the Southwest, and a hut-to-hut mountain biking route in Utah. We also own retail bike shops in Las Vegas and Utah.
Recently, I made the decision to start adding a tariff tax line item directly to the price tags on certain products in our stores, especially electric bikes. All of our electric bikes from our major supplier are going to cost 10% more.
We have the exact same electric bikes hanging on the same hook in our retail stores and some cost $4,500 and the one right next it costs $4,950. There’s no difference except when we purchased them, so one has a line item because it was purchased when that price increase was implemented due to the tariff. It really puts us in an uncomfortable situation with our customers. We have to explain to them.
Whether we like it or not, we’re paying those taxes, which is how I view tariffs, as a brick-and-mortar shop. We have to pay it to get that product into our store. If I don’t have a bike in a bike shop, I’m going out of business.
So now the point comes to, are we going to pass that tax on to our customers or not? The bicycle industry runs on pretty tight margins. If you cut the 10% into that, you might as well get ready to have your exit strategy for your business because you’re not going to be able to operate. There’s no way, that’s just how it goes.
I ran for governor of Nevada in 2018 as a Republican. I didn’t vote for Donald Trump. He was the reason I ran for office. I watched how he was as a business person, and America’s not a business. I feel like he doesn’t understand how much of an impact his decisions have. He’s almost got blinders on.
I believe that people need to be responsible for their actions. You can implement a policy that you think is great and we will back you up, but we’re also going to tell everybody who’s doing it. I have no problem labeling where this tax is coming from on my products. People need to know that so I have a fighting chance on my end.
This tariff policy has created chaos across the board. The uncertainty is absolutely insane. I ordered new sleeping bags from China for our summer tours, and I was just informed the supply chain has been disrupted and now I don’t know when I will get that product or what I’m going to do. We’re having to redo items that are time consuming during a season where we should be focusing on our customer’s experience.
As a business owner, I don’t have time for this baloney. I did my planning already in my slow season. It’s really disruptive in my operations for me to have to go and find items for something that I’ve already done.
We’re also seeing the effects on our tourism business. We have lots of Canadian customers, and when all this tariff talk started, they began canceling tours. These are $2,000 to $4,000 cancellations. One group told us, “We love you guys, but we can’t put our money into America because of what they’re doing and what they’re saying about our country.”
The tariffs affect everything at some level: some very big and some you won’t even notice. It’s like a lot of little cuts and eventually you bleed out. Enough’s enough and people will shut their doors. The one word I could say for this whole problem that we’re facing is unnecessary. It doesn’t need to happen, but it is.
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