Walmart, Amazon, Costco and Home Depot deal with the tariff erar trauma

The five largest retailers in the USA-Walmart, Amazon, Costco, Kroger and Home Depot- have registered their financial income for the first part of 2025. The combined power of these retailers corresponds to almost 20% of total retail sales in the USA. The Big Five retailers agree that it is difficult to predict the future effects of tariffs. However, each retailer has worked on alleviating the effects of tariffs on the pricing and product availability of its consumers.

The effects of tariffs on previous financial reports this year were minimal, since most of the reported profits from the periods come from the tariffs on April 5. Home Depot and Walmart shared financial data by the end of April, while the Costco data went through in mid-May. Kroger, who works over 20 Store banners such as Ralphs and Harris teaer, reported until January. The first quarter of Amazon runs until March.

Inventory from Walmart, Amazon, Costco and Home Depot preferred

Walmart, Amazon, Costco and Home Depot have promoted their inventory purchases to alleviate the effects of tariffs. The purchase of the inventory in advance helps ensure that a company has a product in stock across the board and can offer the best possible prices. Amazon encouraged its third -party suppliers to do the same. Costco has increased the delivery for patio products and sporting goods in order to be ahead of the effects of collective bargaining prices.

Walmart and Home Depot twice on the best prices

Even the largest retailers in the United States cannot take the sole burden of tariffs by absorbing the costs without increasing prices. Discount transactions, grocery stores, E -Commerce players and warehouse associations are usually very thin profit margins. “We are positioned to manage the cost pressure from tariffs or better than any other. But even at the reduced level, the higher tariffs lead to higher prices,” said Doug McMillon, CEO from Walmart. The size of the tariffs cannot be compensated for by companies with lower margins.

Home Improvement Giant Home Depot plans to maintain its competitive pricing despite the tariff effects through stronger supplier partnerships, diversification of the supply chain and the concentration of improving its productivity through activities. “We will not see any broad price increases for our customers in the future. It is a great opportunity for us to take stocks, and it is a great opportunity for our suppliers to take shares,” said Billy Bastek, Executive Vice President from Merchandising at Home Depot.

Food -titan Kroger, Walmart and Costco want to keep prices low

In the food sector where there are food prices 2.0% higher On a 12-month basis, consumers have to spend more on inflation. Due to tariffs for food that is considered non -discretionary costs, companies like Walmart try to protect against additional costs. “We will not allow a tariff cost pressure on some general goods items to put pressure on food prices,” said McMillon.

Food tariffs in countries in South and Central America put imported objects such as bananas, avocados, coffee and flowers. “We will do our best to control what we can control in order to keep food prices as low as possible,” said McMillon. Costco prices for pineapple and bananas, although the costs of these goods rose due to tariffs. However, when it came to flowers that were also affected by additional tariffs, the company was of the opinion that a price increase was absorbed by the consumer, since flower purchases were regarded as discretionary costs.

With 100% of its sales in the United States, Kroger wants to be proactive and diversify its supplier base in order to keep prices lower, especially in the new products category. “We assume that inflation is 1.5 to 2.5%, which does not include the effects of tariffs,” said Todd Foley at the beginning of the year, interim CFO at Kroger.

Diversification strategies in Walmart, Amazon, Costco and Home Depot

Global retailers have examined the diversifying sourcing options to reduce the costs of the goods when the tariffs are implemented. Amazon and Walmart have been diversifying their supply chains for many years and focused on not being too dependent on a country for imports. Two thirds of what Walmart sells in the USA is made, gathered or grown in Germany.

Walmart continues to diversify its sales by leaning into better profit areas such as the sale of advertising via his retail media network, expanding its marketplace and increasing membership income.

COSTCO was transferred to non-US markets and works closely with suppliers to find alternative production locations. The trademark brand Kirkland Signature, which is a third of the sales of Costco, is still a favorite for consumers in quality and value. The company has procured the products to countries where articles are sold to keep prices low. The most profitable sector of Costco, its income from membership, rose by 5.4%. Last year, membership rose to 137 million members despite an increase in its membership award.

Home Depot has diversified its supply chain, with over 50% of the purchases have already been collected in the USA.

Different strategies for inventory units for Amazon, Costco and Home Depot

Amazon relentlessly focuses on the infrastructure of the back-of-house to improve the delivery speeds and reduce costs by investing heavily in robotics and automation. The purchase of everyday essentials continues to grow as a category for the consumer, which means that they are more dependent on the Amazon brand and comprises categories such as household goods, personal nursing articles and pantry staples. “We have an extremely large selection, hundreds of unique skus (stock authorities), which means that we are often able to survive challenging conditions better than others. If you have the widest selection of how we do, and 2,000,000 plus global sellers like us are better positioned to help customers to lower the items that they have at lower prices than elsewhere,” said Andy Jassy, ​​CEO, CEO, Amazon.

However, the close goods depth and the wide range of Costco enable the company to concentrate on less sku, which gives him a competitive advantage. “We believe that our know -how when buying a limited SKU counting model offers greater mobility to navigate through the environment and ultimately increase our member values ​​compared to the market,” said Gary Millerschip, CFO at Costco.

Home Depot will deal with the SKU optimization and may process some products that are significantly affected by the tariff costs but do not make sense to store it in its current range. Other retailers outside the Big Five have worked to optimize the product styles that are most relevant for their customer base, and to eliminate those who are too expensive or have lower sales.

Walmart, Amazon, Costco and Home Depot cannot predict the future

If we enter the second quarter for most retailers (May to July), the pricing may not be affected, since retail buyers were usually obtained many months before the sales season. In autumn and holiday sales, however, consumers can lead to price increases on time for the purchase of vacation. In the case of imported objects, the tariff is paid at the time of customs, which means that these products are most likely not yet in the United States. Retailers cannot predict pricing for the country's uncertainty later.

There are too many assumptions and factors for retailers to move a certain way in these most unpredictable times in the retail landscape. The Big Five retailers continue to model various scenarios for reducing price increases or out-of-floor for their customer base. The advantage of the larger retailers of several billion dollars such as Walmart, Amazon, Costco, Kroger and Home Depot is the option of using supplier networks and leaning into the amount of resources that are available to build more demanding infrastructures to support a diversified supply network. The retailers are working hard to ensure that the prices remain in harmony with customer expectations, but it is too early in a volatile tariff landscape to predict the actual effects on the pricing for consumers for the rest of the year.