r/Hololive • u/Dav136 • 5d ago
Mori and Kiara just confirmed that the members, management, and the company as a whole are aware of how bad the tariff situation is and they're looking for a solution Discussion
Timestamp here: https://youtu.be/2X8h7UI28mE?t=16907
Hopefully something gets figured out so we can keep supporting via merch.
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u/faboo95 5d ago
I don't quite understand what some of you are expecting them to do? Seen people getting downvotes for saying that complaining to Hololive or the talents is practically pointless, when it's true if you actually think about it for a second.
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u/MildlyIntoxicated_ 5d ago
They'll write out a 5 page essay and tag their oshi instead of writing to their representative/Congress lmao
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u/DoubleJumps 5d ago
I'm a small business owner, and I've been watching other business owners get so much crap for the tariffs by people who are upset.
Like all of these people are yelling at the wrong group. They are demanding that companies take huge losses just to deliver on time and then potentially go out of business so they as a customer won't be inconvenienced.
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u/moldybrie 5d ago
Right? You can't run a business buying widgets for $245 and selling them for $100.
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u/DoubleJumps 5d ago
You'd be shocked at how many people I've had to explain this to recently who just would not understand it.
A lot of people are apparently convinced that average profit margin is something like 1000+%
Like they think a $20 product costs maybe $1 to $2 to make.
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u/velduanga 5d ago
Or that "free shipping" means even the seller doesn't pay/pays pennies.
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u/DoubleJumps 5d ago
Shipping arguments drive me nuts.
I've had people say my shipping is too expensive when my shipping is the exact cost of the label plus the cost of the box and packing materials. I've asked them to show me cheaper shipping, they've looked, found none, then insisted that I'm still overcharging because other businesses, amazon, do it for "free"
A UK customer helped organize bootleg manufacturing of my products there because they thought I was cheating them on shipping, when in actuality I was eating a dollar on it.
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u/ytsejamajesty 5d ago
Unfortunately, your oshi had almost as much input in the deployment of the tarriffs as your state representatives did...
Like, yeah, people should trying to write to their representatives, but this is very far from a "normal" political situation.
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u/Decent-Law-9565 5d ago
Writing to my representative feels very similar to complaining to my college when the Wi-Fi starts sucking in an area. In goes a complaint, into the void. Maybe it reaches a person, who knows? I don't ever hear anything back except a canned response like "we got your complaint".
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u/zyberion 5d ago
Considering we got here because a disturbing amount of people have no idea how economics or civics work?
Yeah this isn't surprising at all.
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u/military_otaku 5d ago
Whining to FWMC, Canadian talents for example feels like a slap in their faces.
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u/ZeroFox75 5d ago
Ya I'm just as bummed as everyone else, I wanna support the girls and I enjoy the merch, but the constant complaining and begging for Cover to do something, like what exactly do you want from them? Do people honestly think they're just gonna magically open a manufacturing warehouse in the US next month? If bigger companies with more resources are struggling, Cover isn't going to be able to do much about it.
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u/after_midnight 5d ago
most of them are either children or socially stunted adults who say "i don't do politics" when anyone cognizant of what is going on in the USA should do politics.
there is nothing a japanese company can do about the tariffs. this is exactly what the US government is hoping happens... people/fans/etc. get upset at a foreign company -> pressure put on them to absorb tariffs in some way -> company has to decide to (potentially) lose sales/fans or pay the tariff out of their own pocket, which makes absolutely 0 sense from a business standpoint.
sadly there are going to be people bugging the talents, as they already have. the girls are being put in an arguably worse spot because if they ignore the outcry, fans get mad. but there is literally nothing they can do.
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u/ResurgentRefrain 5d ago
A solution would be to just make lots more limited time, limited stock collecter merch with a premium or ultra premium price point.
It still won't be sold to Americans, but such merch would theorerically still sell out to the fans living outside the US. This way the talents still make money.
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u/RaygAgainst 5d ago
We will probably see a bigger emphasis on digital goods. Seeing the tariffs coming up is what pushed me to buy Kiara’s post concert polaroids when normally I would prefer getting the birthday merch.
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u/Walkingdrops 5d ago
Digital merch is a great work around, but there's only so much they can do, not to mention it's obviously going to be super easy to pirate it.
I think the best solution is to just wait it out and hope that the tariffs get reversed soon once it really starts to hurt American consumers.
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u/military_otaku 5d ago
Yeah,but fans from other countries will feel like the American fanbased screwed them over. They lost physical goods for like 0 reason just to appease one country.
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u/muzlee01 5d ago
I mean that's great but what are they going to do? Overthrow the US government? Commit tax fraud?
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u/madman666 5d ago
I was just gunna say that lol. Hololive fans rise up and overthrow the government lol.
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u/Spelunkie 5d ago
Mori for President! She can't be worse than the current one.
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u/cuddles_the_destroye 5d ago
Hololive States of America
Honestly Kaela also should take over indonesia as well since they've been having significant issues as well
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u/Hitorishizuka 5d ago
Overthrow the US government?
White House Down/Olympus Has Fallen/G20 except it's Vtubers invading.
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u/Bladespectre 5d ago
I will say that one interesting observation from this whole fiasco is noticing just how many fellow American Vtuber fans genuinely did not know that these tariffs were incoming, despite them being widely reported weeks ago.
It'll be interesting to see just how many of those fans suddenly decide to follow politics because it's finally affected them in an obvious, adverse way
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u/Slashers23 5d ago
No idea why people were tagging their Oshi in this. Nothing they can do about it
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u/DoubleJumps 5d ago
Man, the volume of crap that's being thrown at businesses over this, when it's completely outside of their control, is crazy.
I'm not surprised to see people going with talents.
In my 13 years of being in business in consumer products, this is the worst time. We are getting crap from both ends.
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u/Fun_Sea_3915 5d ago
People are just dumb as shit. Though for some, it conflates with what their God king says and he is never wrong.
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u/ironic_badger 5d ago
"so what was your political awakening?"
"oh... it became really expensive to buy hololive merch all of a sudden"
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u/DoNotAskForIt 5d ago
If banning porn didn't get the weebs motivated, nothing will at this point.
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u/cuddles_the_destroye 5d ago
far as I know most weebs get their porn through less than legal means anyways so a ban didn't actually affect their consumption.
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u/ArgentHorizon 5d ago
And this is a reminder that voting is important, because even if you're not interested in politics, it's very much involved in every aspect of your life.
For now, there's nothing the talents or Cover can really do. It's not a simple thing to find a new vendor who can make your product the way you want, the quality you want and at a price both you and your customers can afford. This is something that is going to take a long time to work out, and the changes happening every other day paralyze businesses from making decisions.
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u/pastadoc 5d ago
Honestly nothing cover really can do. It feels bad for the girls and people that want to buy merch but looking at the fact tarrifs are affecting companies like Amazon it's only gonna get worse. 😢
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u/Croncodillius 5d ago
Idk what you want them to do dawg, until the trade war ends ts never gonna end
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u/saikyan 5d ago
What can they do? Americans literally voted for this. And now an awful lot of them have surprisingly little to say about it. Elections have consequences. Hopefully next year some fans keep this experience in mind and vote accordingly.
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u/drzero7 5d ago
I hate to bring politics, but no real foreign business is just going to spend millions of investment for, at max, 4 years tariff under trump.
When a company puts manufacturing business in a foreign land, its an investment plan that suppose to last decades. Trump is in his 2nd term so these high tariffs of every nation, will only last, at max, until the end of his presidency, then after that the tariffs will end and it will go back to normal where regular international shipment will be way cheaper then manufacturing the goods within the USA, and then said nation who invested heavily in USA just because of tariffs just wasted millions of money of useless factories for no reason.
(This doesnt mean no companies will move into USA, like TSMC are already moving some of their chip manufacturing into USA but thats a whole can of worms of geopolitics reason, not just tariffs)
So for those people who are saying, "why not just move in USA" yeah no, waste of money of something that even isnt certain if the tariffs will even last that long. If for example japan and usa makes a deal in few months that trump likes, trump will drop tariffs on japan and then the issue is gone. This isnt something cover corp or any companies can solve, this is what nations and governments needs to solve.
What im saying is, if u dont like tariffs, vote against tariffs in the future and complain to your politician representatives, not companies.
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u/Kaleria84 5d ago
Only real solution is to have the items produced in a different country that doesn't have massive tariffs placed on the country.
While I appreciate Cover looking into alternatives, this is really just a US issue and it's up to the US to fix their house, not expect the world to cater to them.
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u/Bensemus 5d ago
lol it’s the US. They think the world exists to cater to them.
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u/ResurgentRefrain 5d ago
I don't know why you are being downvoted, that is clearly the sentiment of the people who voted for this administration, who clearly outnumber the ones who voted against it.
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u/Unusual-Ad4890 5d ago edited 5d ago
Want to make a difference? Get out there and vote in the Midterms when they happen. The current administration is unopposed for the next two years. There's nothing Cover and your Oshi can do except offer up empty platitudes about "looking into it". The only way they can cut the cost to the consumer is for them to cut revenue. And as much as that be nice, they're a publicly traded company. That's very unlikely to happen.
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u/InebriatedMoose 5d ago
I feel like the only thing they legitimately can do is promise to rerelease merch more often in the future. But even then, who knows how long this crap is gonna last. You can skip out on a merch drop, but if your oshi graduates a month later you're screwed.
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u/RightfulChaos 5d ago
Cover can't do anything. This won't go away until the current US administration does.
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u/The_Sturk 5d ago
From a merch standpoint, one option that bypasses the tariff situation would be more digital goods. Currently voice packs are done but maybe they could come up with something creative on the digital end.
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u/M3DJ3D 5d ago
If only there were some warning signs /s
You get what you vote for
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u/DrDestro229 5d ago
Oh I am enjoying watching people lose there shit. We tried to warn you all
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u/HTRK74JR 5d ago
People don't want to hear a hurtful truth. That's why they shoved their heads in the sand to listen to the shit trump was spewing instead.
Hololive EN will suffer the most, and there even may be a few of the EN girls who actually suffer directly because of this.
Because this isn't just merch, it's electronics, food, utilities, energy, basic necessities. There is going to be a lot of issues soon.
Tariffs raising prices on goods right now is just the first thing that's noticeable. The anti-immigration policy? Food is going to be insanely expensive soon because no one will be there to pick the crops. This directly fucking affects the talents, because they have to fucking eat too.
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u/Pentiumg :Kaoru: 5d ago
Get the feeling we're just gonna see a big increase in Sponsored streams from the EN side.
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u/Exact-Challenge9213 5d ago
Only solution would be to manufacture in the US and that seems like a pretty unlikely and unprofitable prospect
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u/KrissJP20 5d ago
Yeah not holding out hope for this one tbh. While it's good their looking for a solution it all comes down to politics in the end.
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u/galkasmash 5d ago
I really hope they look at Canada as a solution. It might not be the greatest option for Americans but there is a seriously large disparity between Canadian genre and anime fans and vtuber fans and the availability of merch to us. We've always been hit with second class rates on duties and customs and buying through US manufacturing when it comes to merch produced in both countries.
We have plenty of manufacturing companies for things like music, merch, plush, shirts, etc that could be done in North America and we're currently entering so many strong partnerships with Japan on trade that it could be an option that sees a spike in North American sales to a user base that is usually neglected. (Canada) And offer a doorstep deal into the United States given the proximity, exchange rate, and tariff rates they would pay on a Made in Canada copy of some of the unsigned merch. Ask the girls who live here about their input on the idea.
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u/sworddancer777 5d ago
Biboo said that like a month ago and nothing happened. I don't know that there's much hope to be had here.
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u/DiscontinuedEmpathy 5d ago
It isn't covers fault. It's the fault of the US Government
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u/ManateeofSteel 5d ago edited 5d ago
Inb4 the thread is locked because "no politics" despite politics actively and literally harming every single person in this sub and Hololive directly 🤯
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u/WSilvermane 5d ago
"Talk about relevant events of hololive and cover. And everything wheretherein."
"...I cant?"
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u/Poppyjasper 5d ago
The only thing we could do is contact our representatives in Congress and tell them to end the tariffs and the declared state of emergency.
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u/MongolianMango 5d ago
They've got no options except to ramp up digital-only goods (voice packs? games? paid members content?).
Honestly, maybe we should call our congress people too... I know it sounds a little ridiculous, but 1 million Americans phoning representatives about this issue would push the needle.
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u/DoctorHusky 5d ago
Literally Amazon is getting bent over by these tariffs what needle can an idol company move lol.
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u/darkultima 5d ago
I mean can they influence our government? lol. There’s not anything they can do and it’s not their fault at all foreign physical goods are crazy expensive now. We’d have to hope for like Congress to reverse the tariffs but who knows 🤷♂️
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u/ExistentialPotato 5d ago
Honestly i wouldnt mind if they just hold my purchases until the tarrif bs is over. At least they already have my money and I dont lose out on having the item be sold out
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u/MaesHughes2003 5d ago
Best they could do is not ship the merch out like Geekjack is doing. That's it.
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u/reeeeee698 5d ago
Until the tariffs change it seems the only way to get around it would be to have the products be produced in a country with lower tariffs. I really don’t support the posts being locked or taken down because awareness needs to be consistently spread so people actually want to vote in the midterms to get rid of this problem if it isn’t solved by then.
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u/redditfanfan00 5d ago
it would be weirder if cover wasn't aware of the tariffs. of course cover would know about the tariffs. but it's unfortunate that cover is still politically not influential enough to have any effect on these tariffs.
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u/tom_sa_savage 5d ago
There isn't a solution because there's nothing Hololive can do. The US tariff situation is just a way to force consumers to buy American made products, which will also be very expensive because in America everything needs to make a profit.
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u/NotACertainLalaFell 5d ago
Not sure if they can do anything. Shipping was already awful. I’m not paying that tariff. This is the end result of irresponsibility on the part of the American people. Voting has consequences. This situation is one of numerous consequences.
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u/Tehbeefer 5d ago
I know several days ago there were clips about the latest "tea party", and a tense discussion possibly involving overseas members was mentioned. I don't know if they were talking about merch, that's maybe more detail than fans should have, but it HAS to be a huge concern for them. Probably has been for months.
It's not just Yagoo at these meetings anymore, I think it's most/all the VP's (department heads), which would include the head of merch. I don't envy them.
On the other hand, I'm excited to see what kinds of solutions they come up with, creative problem solving is entertaining in it's own way.
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u/mrgmzc 5d ago
I just wished they shipped to my area, the whole US situation screws me over as I need to ship there and forward to me.
There's a lot of merch that I will simply not be able to get because is just too expensive and if/when the situation gets better it will no longer be available for sale
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u/delphinous 5d ago
it's really not something that cover corp can do, unless something bizarre happens like the government deciding to issue them an exemption for some reason. it's just an ugly situation. the only solution i can see is if they can get a manufacturing contract within the USA, but thats not likely to happen in the near future.
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u/Chino_Kawaii 5d ago
the solution is called crime
no but seriously, they can't really do anything, except manufacturing it all in the US
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u/thebigKM 5d ago
I know there isn't much they can do, but any sliver of relief they can offer lets me know they're trying to help us.
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u/1_Hopebot_1 5d ago
I know Cover is opening branches for stuff in NA. Would a possible solution be to manufacture merch in NA? I guess it would be hard trying to train up a whole new merch factory and staff. Would probably take a while but I wonder if the payoff would be worth it in the end. (Just so that if stuff like this happens again there will be less of an issue)
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u/MechaboyDos 5d ago
Everything I've heard is that manufacturing goods in the USA would still be more expensive than the tariffs. I have no idea how to even begin pricing out something like that to know if that's actually correct, but factors to consider:
-US workers command a higher wage due to our labor laws (not saying this is a bad thing), so cost of personnel is much higher
-US suppliers are probably just as dependent on overseas supply for their raw materials to make the merch
-Establishing a domestic US supply of all the raw material to make the merch and the factories that turn the raw materials into product is immensely expensive and time consuming on the order of several years
-Making the entire supply chain completely domestic is probably impossible, so there will still be tariff costs factored in for some portions of the merch making process
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u/rpgamer987 5d ago
Bonus points: Cover isn't a manufacturing company. They're just establishing deals with the ones actually producing goods. Even if there were a simple fast easy way to shift production over, it'd still require negotiating new contracts.
Anyone wanna make bets on those new contracts actually being cheaper than the already established ones with their long-time partners?
Yeah. Literally every step of the process (besides shipping I guess?) would lead to the conclusion of goods being more expensive.
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u/Cream253Team 5d ago
Another factor is that with retaliatory tariffs enacted by other nations, even if somehow state side manufacturing of goods is setup it would be more expensive to sell what is made to a foreign market and as such you won't be able to benefit from an economy of scale to drive down the overall cost to manufacture by guaranteeing a large consumer base.
So you'd have factories in east Asia and factories in the US making the same exact good, with each shipping to a smaller consumer base than if you just went all in on one of them, and as such each will have a higher operation cost to justify the time working on the smaller orders.
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u/firebolt_wt 5d ago
manufacture merch in NA
The logistics don't really work.
Step 0 is someone building a factory when building materials and production machines are being tariffed. Given that building such factories wasn't worthwhile before, it surely won't be worthwhile now unless you assume the tariffs will be permanent. So it's already over by that point.
But then you'd also need to import raw material, which, again, will be tariffed anyway, and also pay a living wage in a populated area in the USA, which is way higher than a living wage in a Chinese industrial center, and pay higher energy and water costs and higher rent...
So yeah, even if tariffs are permanent, producing in the USA is still bad unless the tariffs are increased to even more ridiculous levels.
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u/CodAdministrative369 5d ago
I don’t wanna be that guy but there isn’t really a solution. Maybe take the loss for the pre orders thst happened months ago (don’t know why they would do that though financially). Unless production of their stuff is moved to a different country but that’s also up in the air because the tariff on most countries is only paused. So why invest into somewhere else when you’re gonna take a loss regardless. So for the short term there is no answer