Recall alert: 2 faucet models sold on Amazon risk ‘dangerous lead exposure for young children'
Two types of faucets sold on Amazon were recalled Thursday due to the risk of lead contained in the products polluting drinking water, federal safety officials said.
'The recalled faucets were tested and found to contain lead that can leach into water at levels that can be particularly harmful to infants and young children. The faucets were also found to leach other contaminants, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said in a statement.
Lead ingestion can impact brain development among infants and young children, causing neurological effects such as attention-related behavioral problems, decreased cognitive performance and lower IQ, the agency said.
The recalled faucets are branded as 'BASDEHEN Kitchen Faucets,' with a model number of CFDTTH-000-YGH, and 'VFAUOSIT Kitchen Faucets,' model number 06BNV.
More than 20,000 units of each product were sold, authorities said.
The BASDEHEN faucet has a single, matte black handle that rotates 360 degrees, with a springy, detachable sprout. It was sold on Amazon by Chenfeng Store from May 2024 until this month.
The VFAUOSIT product was described as a 'brushed nickel, single-handle' faucet with a pull-down detachable spray. It was sold on Amazon from January last year through this month.
In both cases, consumers should immediately stop using the faucets and contact their sellers about disposal and a refund. Amazon is also contacting known buyers directly, officials said.
Until the faucets can be replaced, owners should only consume water from them after running the tap for 15 seconds, authorities said.
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Yahoo
13 minutes ago
- Yahoo
'Dead Girl' fights cancer and more, lives to share her story
May 30—Palliative nurse's notes, Aug. 2, 2019: "Participated in Hospice meeting with patient. Seth (spouse), mother, father, bedside RN. Andrea from Hospice was on speakerphone. Discussed philosophy of Hospice and services they provide. Advised that by accepting Hospice, patients have a terminal diagnosis with less then six months to live. Patient was surprised by this, stating she would not qualify. Gina had several questions regarding cancer diagnosis, stating, 'I don't think I am terminal' and unaware of staging/diagnosis .... Patient continues to repeat she is only 46 years old and would like to continue with a treatment as offered and hopefully start immunotherapy when able. Seth was in agreement and supportive." — Book excerpt WATERTOWN — Eugenia Mancini Horan opens the front door of her parent's home on outer Bradley Street to welcome a visitor, this writer, who tells her that from what he's read about her, she looks amazing. "Your reaction is much like when I go to a new doctor and they open the door and are like, 'I was expecting someone deader,'" she says, laughing. Eugenia ("Gina") has crawled, bled, begged, argued, rejoiced and has been mocked through the ravages of stage 4 cancer. It is simply amazing, a miracle some say, that she is alive and cancer free. She recounts her 2019 cancer journey in the self-published, "The Dead Girl's Guide to Terminal Cancer: A True Tale of Anxiety, Horror & Hope." It's been the number one best seller on Amazon's lung cancer category for several weeks. It's a hardbound 400 pages, the size of a college textbook and its emotional weight vastly outweighs its 2 pounds. Its cover features a deer-in-the headlights-like self-portrait of the author, who has won a slew of awards on the local arts scene for her oil paintings. Readers have called the book darkly humorous and poignant. With its various characters, tragic subplots of her youth, family dynamic and medical notes, its is also novelesque. For the gist of it, Gina summarizes it all in the book's afterward: "There are no heroes in this story, no saviors, no 'Good Doc With a Cure,' coming in for a last-minute save. There is only medical bias, cancer bias, and the notion that a girl who is afraid of the world can't fight like a rabid animal to stay alive." 'Let me live' "My whole story is fighting people to get them to let me live," Gina said in the room of her parents' home, where in 2019, a hospital bed was set up in front of a picture window and where many expected her to meet her demise while battling lung cancer which she said had spread to her trachea, bronchus and small bowel. "Somebody should be treated like they're dead when they are already dead." "It's such a scary diagnosis and we have put such faith in the white lab coat," said Seth, who helped his wife with the book. "I know because we did it. You will cling to anything you are told. That has been the most horrifying, duh! moment during this whole process: to have the curtain pulled back and it's like, these are just people. And people make mistakes. And every one of them made a mistake with her." "When putting out the book, you couldn't think about someone reading it because it's like, 'Here is every bad thing that ever happened to me and people treating me badly.' Would you like to read it? It's embarrassing," Gina said. "But I thought in it, there's got to be something that can help people: look for these red flags, don't just trust. I've been a cancer advocate for five years and now I have two enemies." One of those enemies, she said, is God. "Which sounds harsh, but people pray to God that he's going to cure cancer, so they become inactive." The second: "People implicitly trusting that their doctors have their best health in mind when they come up with cures. No doctor comes up with a cure. It's a list. It's, 'If you have this cancer, in this stage, this is what you get.'" Gina's "Dead Girl's Guide to Terminal Cancer" encapsulates one year, 2019, from when she was diagnosed to when she saved herself, thanks to her desperate pleas to try immunotherapy — specifically Keytruda — a type of immunotherapy that works by blocking a pathway to help prevent cancer cells from hiding. Immunotherapy uses a person's own immune system to fight cancer. Blood and a diagnosis Gina woke up on Christmas morning, 2018, at their home in North Syracuse and thought she had the flu or something. When she coughed, she noticed little flecks of blood on a tissue. As a smoker, she thought it could be normal. "But one night, it was abnormal," she said. "It was nose-bleed-like." She also experienced shortness of breath and a racing heartbeat. Gina said she has had symptoms of anxiety disorder since age 5 and was finally diagnosed with it at age 17. Considered disabled, she has Medicaid. At the medical appointment to address what she was coughing up, she said she was told, 'I think you just got yourself worked up with your anxiety.'" "And I'm like, 'That's powerful. I was torn because I wanted her to say it was nothing, and then when she said it was nothing, it was, 'I can't let it go. Can we run some blood work?' By the time we got home, the phone was ringing. I failed that blood work bad." What followed was a series of tests and scans that wreaked havoc on Gina's anxiety. She was diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer in mid-February, 2019 at a Syracuse hospital, one of two hospitals in that city which treated her during her year-long ordeal. She doesn't name the hospitals in the book and requested the Syracuse hospitals not be named here. Radiology summary/Feb. 15, 2019: Impression: Right apical lobulated mass is seen. Right hilar lymph nodes are seen possibly exerting a mass effect on the right main bronchus. No pulmonary arterial embolus is identified." In the top portion of her uppermost lobe, there was an unusual mass. Also, some lymph nodes had grown large enough to restrict airflow through her right main bronchus. Surgery, which didn't make sense to Gina, was recommended. "How was taking out two lobes of my lungs — to remove the origin tumor that wasn't causing any issue — going to help with the mass that was actually threatening my life? Was this just busy work?" she writes in the book. A cancer diagnosis can bring thoughts of chemotherapy. That wasn't originally in the cards for Gina, a "card-carrying emetrophopbic." Emetophobia is the fear of vomiting and can be triggered just by seeing someone else being sick. As an alternative, Gina and Seth tried highly concentrated cannabis oil. Meanwhile, Gina's parents, Eugene and Clorise Mancini, urged her to come home to Watertown as her health declined. Gina and Seth moved there in May, 2019. "The drive there filled me with both anxiety and salvation," Gina wrote in the book. "Seth figured out how to get the oxygen compressor to work in the car." Gina could not walk to the front door, and it marked the first of hundreds of times that Seth would carry his wife. This year, on the sixth-year anniversary of her diagnosis, Gina, on Facebook, paid tribute to Seth, who she married in 2006: "My husband dropped everything when I got sick to be my caregiver. For five months everywhere I needed to go, he carried me because I couldn't walk. Bedpans? Did that. Suctioning out my trach? That too. Butt wiping? Yup, even that. Yet, most days, we still laughed because we were still us." Gina entered Walker Center for Cancer Care at Samaritan Medical Center, Watertown, for the first time on June 5, 2019, where she would stay as an inpatient for a week. She agreed to start chemotherapy on June 7, which continued weekly for five infusions before she had a hyperbaric breathing emergency and was taken by ambulance to an intensive care unit at a Syracuse hospital. She was at that ICU from July 17 to Aug. 9. "The chemo has failed me. I'm in a very bad place medically,"she wrote in a July 18, 2019 Facebook post. She was given a zero percent chance of survival. Hematology & Oncology Fellow notes July 31, 2019 "Patient has received palliative radiation therapy. 3 daily fractions in addition to one endobronchial brachytherapy ... Keytruda will not be given to an inpatient and patient needs to be more medically stable to be eligible for and tolerate further therapy." In the ICU, Gina was starving and her weight plummeted. A couple of photographs of a gaunt-looking Gina are on the book's back cover. "The reason I put those pictures there is because I was not sick because of cancer, but because of not being treated. It was, 'We are not going to feed the patient because the patient is dying. The patient is dying because she isn't being fed.' One of the reasons I wrote the book is because nobody around me understood the extent of the abuse that was happening, I know without a doubt, had I been able to talk, the entire story would have been different, because I would not have been docile about this happening." Excerpt from Psychological evaluation Aug. 1, 2019 "Patient clearly and persistently repeated ... that she wanted palliative care only rather than aggressive Rx intended to extend life because aggressive Rx was unlikely to work, and hospitalization was so unpleasant." "In retrospect, I had made an almost fatal error," Gina wrote. "I hadn't been willing to lie about my belief in my own death in order to get out." In other words, she said she had to be purposely deceptive to get into Hospice. On Aug. 9, 2019, Gina left the hospital for Hospice care at her North Syracuse home. It was a Friday. "The Hospice coordinator told us that someone would be back in 72 hours," Gina wrote. "She also told Seth I had about three days to live. What excruciating math." Gina received Hospice care for six days, after which she and Seth cut ties with it. Her goal was to return to the home she grew up in, in Watertown. She arrived Aug. 15. Seth carried her into the house. "I knew I was in very bad shape," Gina wrote. "But there was no time for pessimism, and the hard work ahead didn't scare me." At SMC, two weeks after her "two weeks to live," she pleaded to a doctor for a Keytruda prescription. But the doctor would not budge in her refusal. "My temper now getting the best of me, I snarled: 'So, what you're telling me is that you are afraid the Keytruda might kill me before the cancer you know will kill me? Is that the argument? Am I clear on that?' But please, please, just give me a f****** chance to fail. Please don't make the choice for me." The doctor relented. On Aug. 29, 2019, Gina received her first Keytruda infusion. It would be a 30-minute process every three weeks. Two days later, she wrote that her fever subsided. Her lung opened up 15 days later, creating movement in her body, near her rib cage, that was frightening at first. By the second infusion, she was sitting up on her own. She would continue to get stronger, building back every muscle in her body. By late September, Gina was using a walker in her parents' driveway. On Halloween, at her fourth Keytruda infusion at the Walker Cancer Center, Gina saw a nurse that she hadn't seen in over a month. Her book recounts the nurse's reaction: "I watched all the color drain from her face, and she dropped to her knees as she grabbed the cross around her neck. She began to sob right there on the floor. I ran over to comfort her, and she still looked at me as if I were a ghost." Gina believes she could have been given Keytruda on day one, sparing her body the indignity of wasting away. It would have also voided a $2 million ICU stay, she said. Despite being on Medicaid, Gina said she and Seth acquired about $200,000 in medical debt, noting, "living against medical advice isn't covered by Medicaid." They deployed their credit cards, sought financial help from her parents and a GoFundMe drive raised $15,000. "Nobody fights, especially not on Medicaid, because they expect you can't." No cancer, no naïvety Gina's most recent medical appointment reflected being 5 1/2 years cancer free. She is also free from her naïvety relating to medical care. "I think when you see a movie about a severe illness, there's a kind, compassionate, dedicated doctor cheering on the patient, staying up nights to figure out a way, a solution, a plan. I kinda expected that. I miss that naive me. And the patient is stoic, brave, suffering beautifully and angelically. Almost from the day of my diagnosis, I thought of that patient, the Hallmark Heroine. The thing about that woman? She always dies at the end, and people sob because it was so unfair." But that wasn't her fate, or in her nature. "I'd already had 46 years of being cynical, sarcastic and a bit of a jokester. And cancer didn't change that, because I refused to let it own me. To take over, to take away my ability to make fun of any and everything. They say a positive attitude is super beneficial in cancer, but I hope I have shattered that belief." Being "afraid of the world" was also a factor in Gina's cancer battle. "That made it easier to deal with, in a way. It was just another thing to be scared of. I was equally as afraid of going to the hospital, as I was of dying. It absolutely 100 percent saved my life. Without doubt or hesitation. Anxiety teaches you to look for the danger, seek all the exits, and always be prepared to flee. But perhaps above all, avoid situations that feel terrifying. Everything after February 15, 2019 felt out of control, and terrifying. No one in the medical world would have conversations anymore, they only talked at me." The thing about anxiety with PTSD, Gina explained, is that one can become very calm in chaos. "You think clear, sharp and exact. Stillness and boredom are terrifying, but the world blowing up clears the mind. And I think that's why I was able to spot flaws in my treatment plans and question the motivations for them that were nonsensical to me." A key pep talk Despite the medical professionals who "only talked at" Gina and recalled in her book, she also highlighted in her book a few individuals that gave her hope. One was a "Dr. Lee" who was doing a rotation as a hospitalist at SMC, while doing his actual residency at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo. He now works in Texas. "Dr. Lee was my magic. It's like he came in at the beginning with the best pre-game pep talk, and I followed it the rest of my journey. He was young and didn't have the ego or entitlement I've seen in so many other oncologists I encountered. He was enthusiastic about killing cancer. Stoked. Raring to go. Running into work to kill some cancer!" Gina said that he was also the first and last doctor to root for her. "Which likely sounds odd. But the doctors who saw me get better weren't impressed. It wasn't remarkable to them. They just thought I'd die." The biggest gaping wound Gina said she encountered in oncology was the lack of "heart" she saw in it. "The point is, if there were more Dr. Lee's, I honestly believe more people would survive. Caring spills over into treatment plans, into feeling valued, into a bond of trust, and helps avert not distrusting the doctors, the medicine, the conspiracies." Last month, Gina sent Dr. Lee a copy of her book with a note inside. "And now I feel a bit lighter. It was, in some way, vital for me to let him know how deeply he mattered, that I didn't die, and the part he played in that. And how many fans he has out there in the world now." Helping others As an advocate, Gina said she is contacted nearly every day by people who become familiar with her story. "I'm absolutely thrilled others find something of merit in the book. I didn't want to publish it. It was never my intent. But I felt a deep sense of survivor's guilt, and also I had seen and heard things that might help others avoid some of the unnecessary suffering I endured." Gina said that doctors still regard her as a Stage 4 cancer patient. "The reason is, is that somewhere in my body could be invisible, undetectable, latent cancer cells waiting to come back. The problem with that is that everybody has that. You do, he does," she said, pointing to Seth. I probably don't, because that Keytruda is bad ass!" Her situation is an issue each time she goes to a doctor, "From people being surprised, to the question of whether or not my being screened for other cancers is necessary because, I'm dying." She then laughed, and with well-earned sarcasm added, "I'm always 'dying.' Like, damn! I can't get a break."
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
- Yahoo
2 Nasdaq Stocks to Buy in June
Investors could be significantly underestimating Google's artificial intelligence capabilities. Amazon's cloud computing business continues to show monster growth potential. 10 stocks we like better than Alphabet › It's not surprising that the Nasdaq Composite's return of 275% outpaces the S&P 500 return of 178% over the last 10 years. The Nasdaq is full of tech-centric companies that are driving change and innovation in the economy, which is where you'll find stocks with monster growth potential. While the stock market got off to a shaky start this year, there are good opportunities to buy shares of dominant tech firms at attractive valuations. Here are two stocks that can deliver great returns in the coming years. Shares of Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) have surged in recent weeks. The company formerly known as Google and home of the famed search engine (among other products) has been weighed down amid increasing competition, fears a recession could slow the advertising market, and the possibility of a court-ordered breakup. But these concerns are well reflected in the stock's modest valuation. Alphabet delivered double-digit growth in revenue and earnings over the last decade. The stock doubled over the last five years and still trades at a modest forward price-to-earnings multiple of 18. That is a bargain for a business with billions of users across popular services like Gmail, YouTube, and Google Search. One of the chief concerns for investors right now is Google's competitive position in search, which generates 56% of the company's revenue. OpenAI's ChatGPT and other leading artificial intelligence (AI) models can function like search engines with a brain, and that is a threat to Google's long-dominant position in the search market. However, Google has very capable AI technology. It built world-class AI infrastructure with a large footprint of data centers, including investment in its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) for AI workloads. The company also turned heads last fall when it unveiled its Willow chip for quantum computing. The latest version of its Gemini large language model is the top-ranked model on Chatbot Arena's leaderboard at the time of writing. Gemini powers all seven of the company's products with over 2 billion users. These achievements reflect a massive war chest of resources at the company's disposal. Over the last year, Alphabet generated $75 billion in free cash flow on $360 billion of annual revenue, and analysts expect its earnings per share to grow 15% on an annualized basis over the long term. Alphabet's investments in data centers, Gemini, and cloud services are laying the foundation for tremendous growth over the long term. These assets will lead to better services for consumers while also positioning Google to capture a large share of a $1 trillion AI opportunity. These prospects make the stock a compelling buy on the dip. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) stock had a great run over the past few years. Since bottoming out in 2022, the stock soared to new highs, rising 144% and outperforming the Nasdaq's return of 83%. Amazon continues to show solid growth in revenue, while cost reduction efforts in its retail business and growth in cloud computing are helping the business convert more revenue into cool profits. Amazon is in a league of its own when it comes to e-commerce -- its largest business. Revenue from online stores grew 6% year over year in the first quarter to $57 billion, as management saw sales of everyday essentials grow twice as fast as the rest of the business. A healthy number of Prime members are clearly relying on Amazon more, which is strengthening its competitive moat. One of the best reasons to consider buying the stock is Amazon's opportunity in cloud computing. Amazon is making cloud services more cost-effective for businesses with its range of hardware and software solutions. Amazon Web Services currently sits at the top of the $348 billion cloud computing market. Over the last year, it generated $112 billion in revenue, with quarterly revenue up 17% year over year in the first quarter. Amazon's cloud opportunity is massive. It is seeing triple-digit growth for AI services, where it offers tools to help companies build their own AI-based applications. Growing demand for cloud services will significantly grow the value of Amazon's business over the long term, as Amazon Web Services generates most of the company's operating profit. Management believes AWS could generate hundreds of billions in revenue over the long term. Recent demand trends certainly point to AWS becoming a bigger piece of Amazon's business, which is a catalyst for the stock. The stock trades at 33 times trailing earnings. For a business that could see many more years of double-digit earnings growth, Amazon investors could be looking at more market-beating returns. Before you buy stock in Alphabet, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Alphabet wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $651,049!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $828,224!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 979% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 171% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of May 19, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. John Ballard has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet and Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 2 Nasdaq Stocks to Buy in June was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
31 minutes ago
- Forbes
Walmart, Amazon, Costco, And Home Depot Tackle The Tariff Whiplash
Coscto is focused on member pricing and plans to try and mitigate as much of the impact from tariffs ... More as it can for its customers. (Photo by) The five largest retailers in the U.S -- Walmart, Amazon, Costco, Kroger, and Home Depot-- have all reported their financial earnings for the first part of 2025. The combined force of these retailers equates to nearly 20% of total retail sales in the United States. The big five retailers all agree that it is difficult to predict the future impact of tariffs, however, each retailer has been working on mitigating the impact of tariffs on pricing and product availability for its consumers. The impact of tariffs on financial reporting so far this year has been minimal because most of the earnings reported are from periods before the April 5th tariffs took effect. Home Depot and Walmart shared financials through the end of April, while Costco data goes through mid-May. Kroger, which operates over 20 store banners including Ralphs and Harris Teeter, reported financials through January. Amazon's first quarter financials run through March. Walmart, Amazon,Costco and Home Depot have pulled forward their inventory purchases to mitigate the impact of tariffs. Purchasing inventory in advance will help ensure a company has product in stock down the line and can offer the best possible pricing. Amazon encouraged its third-party suppliers to do the same. Costco moved up the delivery for patio products and sporting goods to stay ahead of the tariff pricing impacts. While Walmart says it cannot absorb all the cost pressures from tariffs and may have to raise ... More prices, it wants to keep food prices as low as they can. (Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) Even the U.S.'s largest retailers cannot take the sole burden of the tariffs by absorbing the costs without raising prices. Discount stores, grocery stores, ecommerce players, and warehouse clubs typically run on very thin profit margins. "We're positioned to manage the cost pressure from tariffs as well or better than anyone. But even at the reduced levels, the higher tariffs will result in higher prices," said Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart. The magnitude of the tariffs cannot be offset by lower-margin businesses. Home improvement giant Home Depot plans to maintain its competitive pricing despite tariff impacts through stronger supplier partnerships, supply chain diversification, and focusing on improving its productivity across activities. 'We don't see broad-based price increases for our customers at all going forward. It's a great opportunity for us to take share, and it's a great opportunity for our suppliers to take share as well,' said Billy Bastek, executive vice president of merchandising at Home Depot. In the grocery sector, where food prices are 2.0% higher on a rolling 12-month basis, consumers are already having to spend more based on inflation. Companies like Walmart are trying to protect against additional costs due to tariffs on food products, considered a non-discretionary expense. 'We won't let tariff-related cost pressure on some general merchandise items put pressure on food prices, " said McMillon. Food tariffs on countries in South and Central America are pressuring imported items like bananas, avocados, coffee, and flowers. 'We'll do our best to control what we can control in order to keep food prices as low as possible," said McMillon. Costco held pricing on pineapples and bananas despite the cost of these goods rising due to tariffs. However, when it came to flowers, which were also impacted by additional tariffs, the company felt that a price increase was absorbable by the consumer as flower purchases were viewed as a discretionary expense. Kroger, with 100% of its sales in the U.S., is looking at being proactive and diversifying its supplier base to keep prices lower, especially in the fresh produce category. "We expect inflation to be 1.5% to 2.5%, which does not include the effects from tariffs," said Todd Foley earlier in the year, interim CFO at Kroger. Amazon customers are becoming more reliant on the company for everyday essential products which ... More represented one out of every three units sold in the U.S. online at Amazon in the first quarter. Global retailers have been looking at diversifying sourcing options to reduce the cost of goods as tariffs are implemented. Amazon and Walmart have been diversifying their supply chains for many years, with a focus on not being too reliant on one country for imports. Two-thirds of what Walmart sells in the U.S. is made, assembled, or grown domestically. Walmart is further diversifying its revenue by leaning into better profit areas such as selling advertising through its retail media network, expanding its marketplace, and increasing membership income. Costco is rerouting goods to non-U.S. markets and working closely with suppliers to find alternate production locations. The private label brand, Kirkland Signature, which represents one-third of Costco's sales, continues to be a consumer favorite in quality and value. The company has been sourcing the products into countries where items are sold to keep the pricing down. Costco's most profitable sector, its membership revenue, is up 5.4%, with membership increasing to 137 million members last year despite a rise in its membership price. Home Depot has diversified its supply chain, with over 50% of purchases already sourced in the U.S. 'We anticipate that twelve months from now, no single country outside of the United States will represent more than 10% of our purchases," said Ted Decker, CEO of Home Depot. Amazon is relentlessly focused on back-of-house infrastructure to improve delivery speeds and reduce costs by heavily investing in robotics and automation. The purchasing of everyday essentials continues to grow as a category for the consumer, making them more reliant on the Amazon brand and includes categories such as household goods, personal care items, and pantry staples. "We have an extremely large selection, hundreds of millions of unique SKUs (stock keeping units), which means we're often able to weather challenging conditions better than others. When you have the broadest selection like we do and 2,000,000 plus global sellers like we do, you're better positioned to help customers find whatever items matter to them at lower price points than elsewhere," said Andy Jassy, CEO, Amazon. However, Costco's narrow merchandise depth and broad assortment allow the company to focus on fewer SKUs, giving it a competitive advantage. "We believe our expertise in buying a limited SKU count model gives us greater agility to navigate the environment and ultimately increase our member values compared to the market," said Gary Millerchip, CFO at Costco. Home Depot will be looking at SKU optimization and possibly editing out some products that are significantly impacted by tariff costs but do not make sense to keep in its current assortment. Other retailers outside the big five have been working on optimizing the product styles that are most relevant to their customer base and eliminating the ones that are too costly or have lower turnover. As we move into the second quarter for most retailers (May through July), pricing may not be as impacted because retail buyers usually procure goods many months in advance of the selling season. However, going into fall and holiday selling, consumers may see price increases just in time for holiday purchasing. With imported items, the tariff is paid at the time it comes through customs, which means those products are most likely not in the U.S. yet. Retailers are unable to predict pricing for later in the year due to the uncertainty of where tariffs will land. There are too many assumptions and factors for retailers to chart a specific path forward during these highly unpredictable times in the retail landscape. The big five retailers continue to model various scenarios to help mitigate price increases or out-of-stocks for their customer base. The advantage with the larger multi-billion dollar retailers like Walmart, Amazon, Costco, Kroger, and Home Depot is the ability to leverage supplier networks and lean into the amount of resources available to help build out more sophisticated infrastructure to support a diversified supply network. The retailers are working hard to make sure prices stay in line with customer expectations, but it is too early within a volatile tariff landscape to predict the actual impact on pricing for consumers for the remainder of the year.
