""This year was supposed to be the year of retail. Unfortunately, things kind of took a turn with the tariffs," Kinoshita said on the DTC podcast this summer. "That's just the nature of when you manufacture something overseas. You don't fully control your supply chain, you don't fully control your costs. It's not expected, but it's part of the game.""
""Shark Tank" is brutal by design: contestants have two minutes to make their pitch before facing a spray of tough questions from the panel of investors - all to a TV audience of millions. If they're lucky enough to get an offer, or multiple competing offers, the entrepreneurs are given seconds to decide what to do. As "Shark Tank" began airing its 17th season last month on ABC, stories like Plufl's were everywhere."
Plufl, a viral product branded as a dog bed for humans, secured investment from Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner after a memorable Shark Tank pitch. The founders planned rapid scaling using China-based manufacturing to keep unit costs low, selling $399 Plufls that cost $140 to make. By 2023, Plufl had reached $1 million in sales and eyed significant retail expansion. A year of steep tariffs and unstable trade negotiations raised production costs and forced supply-chain rethinking. Platform shifts in distribution and weaker consumer sentiment added further challenges to planned retail growth.
Read at Business Insider
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]