Wild Rye is a success story based in Ketchum: A women-led company that manufactures outdoor apparel for women. But like 97% of the U.S.-owned businesses navigating rising tariffs, it’s a small business — and founder and CEO Cassie Abel told City Cast Boise that means Wild Rye is bracing for volatility and pursuing every possible solution to stay afloat.
How much have tariffs changed your costs and impacted consumers?
“What we’re looking at today is very much still in flux. We have no idea what our tariffs are going to be and when those are going to change because things have been changing so much, so fast and so erratically. … Historically our duties have been on average between 20 and 30%, depending. When April 2 hit, we were looking at an additional 145%. So say we’re manufacturing a $20 pair of shorts, that price would’ve jumped to about $60.”
You’ve said this has been the hardest year of your career. Why do these tariffs feel so different from anything else you’ve seen so far?
“Because it feels like they’re being done to us, first of all. And small businesses in particular are being hit extra hard because we only sell in the U.S. Multinational brands are able to absorb some of these tariffs through selling to other countries. For a brand like us, we can’t absorb any of these tariffs and gradually raise prices the way that larger brands can.”
You’re also planning for products two years before they actually hit the market — how are you planning ahead at all?
“With the constant changing of tariff rates in every single country across the U.S., there’s no way to make smart decisions or long-term decisions. We’re making decisions right now for 2027, and we can’t justify starting from scratch with a new factory in Vietnam or Cambodia or even Europe with the concern that there’s going to be a tweet [from President Trump] that ‘I’m mad at the president of France, all of the European Union is going to be hit with a 40% tariff right now.’ That’s what we’re up against right now, is just this insane volatility with zero predictability.”
