Retailers cut product choices as tariffs and supply costs rise

zestt organics puts aside plans for new products

Retailers are slimming down product lines as they face higher costs to import, move and store goods. Companies including consumer-products maker Helen of Troy and athletic-apparel retailer Under Armour are narrowing the selection of products they sell and focusing on more popular merchandise to simplify sprawling supply chains.

Yedi Houseware, which sells home goods ranging from dinnerware to air fryers, is using a tighter assortment as it adjusts to tariffs and inventory risk. “The volatility of the last several years has reinforced that carrying more [variety] does not necessarily mean more opportunity,” said Bobby Djavaheri, the company’s vice president.

“In many cases, a tighter, more carefully curated assortment allows us to buy more efficiently, manage inventory risk, and offer our retail partners better value,” he said.

Yedi imports all of its merchandise from China. Djavaheri said the Trump administration’s on-again, off-again approach to tariffs on Chinese imports over the past 18 months led the company to pare back orders for some products and focus more heavily on others.

The strategy reverses a yearslong expansion of product selection intended to meet demand for new colors, styles and sizes. The growth of e-commerce had enabled retailers to advertise more products without being limited by store-shelf space.

Some retailers began abandoning product lines after product shortages and overstocks during the pandemic. Those efforts accelerated over the past 18 months as new levies, surging fuel costs and uncertain consumer demand weighed on margins.

In a recent BSI survey, about a quarter of U.S. companies said they planned to reduce the range of products they sell over the next six months. Tony Pelli, BSI’s practice director of supply-chain resilience, said the supply-chain challenges of the past five or six years have prompted companies to reconsider the number of suppliers and products they manage.

“These supply chain challenges we’ve seen over the past five or six years are making them realize that it’s probably simpler and cheaper to go with a smaller base of suppliers that produce a less complicated series of products,” Pelli said. He added, “You can deal with one set of tariffs once and be done with it” instead of calculating levies for many materials and styles.

Helen of Troy, which sells products including Hydro Flask water bottles and OXO kitchenware, said at a shareholder meeting that it had trimmed its product selection to reduce the impact of higher U.S. tariffs.

Under Armour has gone further, cutting more than 25% of its products over two years while investing more in its bestselling items. On an Aug. 7 investor call, Chief Executive Kevin Plank said, “Selling so much more of so many less things at a much higher full-retail price—that’s really speaking to what we’re looking for.”

Smaller businesses are making similar decisions about how much choice to offer. The clothing company zestt organics had worked with new factories over the past two years to develop additional products, including linen apparel. Co-founder Jessica George said the company ultimately decided to put aside the new items.

“For us to take that risk and gamble with a new factory, tariff unknowns, shipping unknowns—at this point, we are deciding that it’s just not a risk that we’re willing to take,” George said.

Across the companies, the shift is changing product selection from an attempt to accommodate more colors, styles and sizes into a narrower strategy built around popular goods, more efficient purchasing and lower inventory risk.