Bennet business gets creative to avoid raising costs this Christmas, despite steep tariffs

BENNET, Neb. (KLKN) – A Christmas decor store is trying to keep costs down for customers despite high tariffs.

Kristi Sittner owns Tailored Life in Bennet.

She started noticing tariff impacts at the beginning of 2025, after ordering Christmas supplies.

Sittner orders inventory from U.S.-based companies, but she also buys things from China, India and Mexico.

Those shipments could each carry an additional 25% tariff or more.

So she started thinking of ways to keep her prices low.

“It’s unavoidable, so we’re going to have to pay it,” Sittner said. “But if we can get items that are either on sale or discounted, or we buy in bulk so we can drop the price down a little bit, those are ways we’re trying to combat the tariffs.”

She’s been trimming off any unnecessary costs.

“We’ve been trying to go directly from the source, from our suppliers, in order to cut out the middleman,” Sittner said.

For the most part, her efforts have worked.

But now she’s running into problems restocking popular items.

For example, she started running out of Christmas bulbs this past weekend. A customer asked if she would be getting a new shipment.

“I looked at the price to reorder it, and it was double,” Sittner said. “It’s just deciding how much the customers want it and if we’re able to get it in.”

She said small businesses must adopt a customer-first mindset to compete with big-box stores.