Earlier this year, I wrote about how a company from which I used to buy my bed sheets began threatening its customers with higher prices practically the moment Donald Trump took office. I’d receive several emails a week about a “Tariff Takedown Sale.” After a while, it got old. Despite the threats, prices never went up as far as I could tell, but I ended up unsubscribing from the emails, and honestly, I’ll never buy anything from this company again. I wasn’t comfortable with the whole scheme, and there was never any concrete information provided, just a bunch of fearmongering.
A few days ago, I received an email from another company, Baiia Swimwear, whom I’ve purchased from in the past — this one sells mostly swimwear and some clothing and is based in Australia — with the subject line “A Temporary Goodbye (But With Big Plans Ahead)” accompanied by a USA flag emoji.
Great, I thought. I figured this would be something else I’d end up unsubscribing from, an email that said something like, “You stupid Americans voted for Donald Trump, so now we’re going to let you have it.” But it wasn’t. Quite the opposite, actually. It was a letter from the company’s founder, Amber Boyers, and it read, in part (I’ve edited out the bit that pertains to shopping instructions and navigating their website):
Hi lovely,
I wanted to personally reach out to share something important for our USA ladies. Starting Sunday, April 27th at midnight AEST, we’ll be pausing all U.S. orders for a few weeks. This wasn’t an easy decision, and I want to explain exactly why it’s happening, and what we’re doing about it.
Recent changes to U.S. import tariffs have made it difficult for us to continue sending your orders from our Australian warehouse. Rather than passing these unexpected costs onto you, I’ve chosen to take a step back, regroup, and build something better.
Behind the scenes, I’m working hard to set up a North American warehouse, run by local American staff, so that our beautiful Baiia pieces can reach you even quicker, more affordably, and without added fees or stress.
This transition will take a few weeks to finalise. I won’t open U.S. orders back up until I have a confirmed date and can guarantee a seamless experience for you.
If you’ve had your eye on something upcoming, now’s the time to shop. You have less than 48 hours to place your order before we hit pause on U.S. shipping…
Thank you for your understanding, your support, patience, and for being part of this journey with us. I promise, this is just the beginning of something even better for our incredible US community ❤️
With all my gratitude,
Amber and the Baiia team x
Wait, she’s not throwing a fit, shaming her U.S. customers, or threatening higher prices? She’s actually bringing business and jobs to the United States? I’d certainly like to know more. I actually reached out to Boyers, who founded the company in 2016, to see if she’d like to give me a statement or even sit down for an interview, but so far, I haven’t received a response. If I do, I’ll certainly follow up, but I also wouldn’t blame her for not responding. If I owned a bathing suit company, I probably wouldn’t want to get too political, either. There’s no need for it.
I also need to point out that Baiia’s clothing is “ethically handmade” by seamstresses in China, or so says their website (you can read about that there — I’m not here to knock or justify it), so I’m not entirely sure how that would work unless that information is outdated. “In our research, most of the best manufacturers for long lasting and high quality garments are located offshore. Australia has wonderful manufacturers for swimwear, but for our designs, sustainable fabrics and eco dyes, the only resources that were up to the challenge were in China,” the website states.
I imagine that operating in the U.S. would require finding a new source for manufacturing, but maybe that’s part of the whole plan. Again, I’d love to know more about how they’re navigating all of this. And if I do find out more, I’ll report back.
This is not the kind of thing the legacy media would ever report on, which is why I wanted to bring you this story. Baiia may be one medium-sized business, but I felt like this could be a sign of something bigger to come for the U.S. economy. We’ll see.
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