A Maker’s Story: Joel Haran on US tariffs

Tell us a bit about your business. 

We are Studio Haran and we started 10 years ago making bespoke furniture and we’ve primarily been making lighting for the last five years. We make the fittings, such as oak ceiling roses, because the shade is really only half of the look. Until recently, many of our sales came from the United States, via Etsy and our own website. We were producing at capacity to fill orders and Helena and I were able to employ five staff plus some subcontractors. We were just keeping up with demand, but that meant we were very concentrated on making, not on marketing and promoting our products. We didn’t have the capacity to make more, so trying to get more customers took a back seat.

How did the introduction of tariffs in the United States affect you? 

There was always a 3.9% tariff on any orders over $800. The customer would generally pay that and FedEx or UPS would collect it for us. When Trump started his presidency he very quickly introduced a further 10% for all good from the UK and that was on top of the 3.9% we were already paying. However, at first, it still wasn’t applied to orders under $800, but in August [of 2025] they got rid of that exemption all together.

We thought the best thing to do was to include it in the total price, because there was no guarantee that customers would read the details of a policy. And if they didn’t pay, then goods would be returned to us and we would have to pay for the return too.

Our orders dropped by 40% in the US, which was our biggest market. Etsy formed a big part of that and, from what I can see, we don’t seem to be appearing in the same way in their search results, so it may not all be down to tariffs and price increases. You also have to allow for a change in consumer patterns and tastes, but it has been quite a drop.

What happened after that?

We actually adjusted our new prices and took some of the costs on ourselves, leaving a smaller margin. But I also think that tariffs being constantly in the news probably put some American consumers off buying from outside the US. It’s also a long wait time, six to eight weeks from the order for making and then the shipping too. Previously customers had liked the product enough to wait, but it’s another layer of uncertainty if things are taking longer.

Have you made any changes to business to compensate for this? 

We’re making more of an effort to market to people closer to us. We’ve done some trade shows, like Clerkenwell Design Week, and started building up orders for cafes and restaurants and with interior designers. But that can be expensive, £5000 for a place in the show, then staff costs and the cost of the stand and other things and it can be closer to £10000. It’s great for contacts, but these things don’t always lead to direct orders. I think with trade shows it’s important to find the right one and it’s very much worth visiting the show before you decide to take a stand there.

We’ve also put more effort into our own website, looking at our SEO, and into running online ads. A lot of people in our world put a lot of effort into Instagram, instead of where people shop. If you’re looking for a light, it tends to be at quite a specific point. It’s not something you’re influenced to buy, you’re searching for it. Now, that’s different if you’re selling something like a mug, but with lighting we put more effort into Google.

And we’ve also started working with a PR agent. It actually feels quite good not to have all of our eggs in one basket and we’ve only just started so let’s see how it goes.

Are there any other tips you would give makers in a similar position to you? 

I would look at getting your products on to Press Loft. It’s been very good for us in terms of getting media coverage, although it’s always hard to tell what that means for concrete sales. You’ll need good images of your products, but it’s pretty easy to set up for designers and makers.

I would also recommend Pinterest. We’ve seen quite good results there. We set up some boards and we also uploaded all of our imagery and we do get an email every few weeks from someone who has found us via Pinterest. It’s a good marketing tactic for us.

And you can also do swaps to help your cash flow. We met our PR when they were looking for lighting. We exchanged our skills for theirs.