AUSTIN, Texas — The Toy Dojo is Eddie Chan’s love letter to his childhood, a time when he wasn’t always able to get his favorite toy.

What You Need To Know

  • Eddie Chan's Toy Dojo in Austin is grappling with rising costs due to new tariffs

  • Chan plans to raise prices to cope with these tariffs, risking a potential decrease in his customer base

  • Despite the challenges, Chan maintains transparency with his customers about the financial impacts of tariffs

“That’s part of the joy of collecting these toys. You go back to the time when you didn’t have to worry about groceries, you didn’t have to worry about taxes,” Chan said. “You just wanted to know if Optimus Prime beat Megatron.”

Most of Chan’s inventory comes from Japan, Taiwan and China.

“Most of the products we carry are very unique, not a lot of companies carry these products,” Chan said.

That means just about everything in the store will be impacted by President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Chan has been sharing how it’s affecting business on his social media channels.  

“We are going to have to raise our prices and that’s the only way we can survive,” Chan said.

While the administration is pausing some tariffs, Trump is showing no mercy to China. The president accuses the country of ripping off the United States. 

“They’re not ripping you off. That’s called free trade and globalization,” University of Texas at San Antonio professor Jon Taylor said.  

Taylor specializes in Chinese politics and public policy. He says Americans shouldn’t expect China to back down from a trade war.  

“The Chinese Embassy on their Twitter feed had a video of Mao Zedong talking about fighting the United States and being relentless in opposing American hegemonism,” Taylor said.  

That means consumers could pay more for certain items for the foreseeable future. Taylor says there are long-term implications politically as well.  

“There are concerns about what may take place going forward in terms of our commitments to our allies in Asia,” Taylor said.  

All Chan says he can do is to be honest with his customers.  

“I’d love to absorb all the tariffs, but what business pays people to take toys from them?” Chan said. “I can’t survive doing that.” 

Chan has received mostly positive feedback from customers for his transparency about tariffs, but as he’s forced to raise prices, he is expecting sales to drop.

“I’ll see a decrease in customers, increase in price, so I’m stuck in the middle there trying to balance this,” Chan said. “I’m either going to have to absorb some of the tariffs so that we maintain some customers or we just lose customers altogether.”