The US tariff situation has been a complete mess. After being threatened, implemented, and then quickly paused, many have understandably been left scratching their heads. Unfortunately, while many tariffs were paused, some countries, such as China, are still affected. This poses serious problems for companies that rely on specialized and affordable Chinese manufacturing.
Sadly, Trading Card Games is one such industry that takes advantage of this manufacturing. Thankfully, Wizards of the Coast has printers in a few different locations, mitigating potential issues for Magic: The Gathering. TCG accessory manufacturers, however, aren’t all so lucky. Following a recent statement, it appears many binders, sleeves, and top loaders may get more expensive soon.
BCW Implaments Tariff Charges
According to Twitter User Missouri MTG, BCW is charging a new 34% tariff surcharge on any product manufactured in China. In case you’ve not heard of them before, BCW is one of the leading accessory manufacturers in the TCG space, offering sleeves, storage, binders, and more.
Frustratingly, there’s currently no information about which of BCW’s products are specifically manufactured in China. There’s a chance this tariff surcharge could be felt across the board by TCG players, or it may be limited to just a few items. Notably, this tariff is only being applied to wholesale orders. It’ll be up to your local game stores and retailers to adjust prices on their end.
Due to this, it’s unclear how this tariff surcharge will actually affect MTG players and BCW customers. Ideally, only affected products will increase in price, hopefully no more than by 34%. Whether or not this will happen, however, remains to be seen. Some stores may opt for blanket price increases, while others don’t raise prices at all. Alternatively, some stores may purchase different products.
For the time being, if you’re in the market for sleeves, binders, top loaders, and other accessories, you may be better off buying sooner rather than later. In theory, current stock shouldn’t be affected by the tariff on new orders, but that remains to be seen. In any case, just make sure that you’re getting your money’s worth, as always.
A Growing Trend
In their Twitter post, MissouriMTG also claimed that Ultra Pro is implementing a 25% price increase effective immediately. Like BCW, it’s claimed that this tariff surcharge is for wholesale dealers rather than a direct price increase to TCG players. Notably, while this surcharge is likely, it has not been confirmed with a source, unlike the BCW tariff surcharge.
Recently speaking to Cllct, an Ultra Pro source stated that “it does import some products and materials that could be subject to tariffs.” At the time, Ultra Pro didn’t explicitly confirm whether or not tariffs would be implemented, but times may have changed since then. Notably, as Cllct noted, Ultra Pro does have a facility in California, which may help to limit the impact of tariffs.
As with BCW, it remains to be seen how Ultra Pro’s reported 25% tariff surcharge will be felt by TCG players. There’s also no telling which products this price increase will affect or if it’ll be applied to every item. Hopefully, for the sake of keeping MTG as affordable as possible, prices won’t jump up by too much for too long.
Alongside Ultra PRo and BCW, Cllct reported that other brands, such as Cardboard Gold and Stand Up Displays, are also being affected by tariffs.
An Uncertain Future
Frustratingly, there’s no telling which way the tariffs and related surcharges will go as time continues. The United States has already shown that tariffs can come and go very quickly, so major changes could be anywhere from months to hours away at any one moment. We can only really be proactive with spending now and hope that any price increases aren’t too major in the future.
In the short term, I wouldn’t hold out hope that TCG accessory manufacturers will stop manufacturing in China en masse to avoid tariffs. At the end of the day, China has spent decades specializing in low-cost specialized production, making it the go-to place to make sleeves, deck boxes, and basically anything. Since most of the world didn’t have a problem with this, until now, similar manufacturing facilities weren’t set up to scale elsewhere.
Essentially, this means that a lot of businesses are going to be locked into manufacturing with China simply because it’s the only place that can. Hopefully, Ultra Pro and similar companies will be able to offset these issues with any existing US-based facilities, but not every company will have that luxury. As a result, we may see a lot of price increases across the board before too long.
At the end of the day, this is still a developing story. Over time, we may see more tariff surcharges put into effect on TCG products, but that remains to be seen. All we know for sure, for now, is that some BCW products are likely going to get more expensive in the near future.