TariffShield
E-commerce tariff exposure calculator + supplier pivot tool.
The Idea
Trump's tariff regime is actively reshaping US import costs and most small e-commerce operators have no idea what their actual exposure is. TariffShield lets any seller paste in their product list (with countries of origin) and instantly calculates their tariff exposure — total cost impact, per-SKU breakdown, and a ranked list of alternative supplier countries with estimated cost comparisons.
Why Now
February 2025: 10% blanket tariff on Chinese goods. March 2025: 25% on Canada and Mexico. More coming. Shopify stores doing $1M+ in revenue from Chinese-manufactured products are watching their margins collapse in real time. Google Trends for "tariffs 2025," "find US suppliers," and "import duty calculator" are all spiking. This is a right-now problem for hundreds of thousands of operators.
How to Build
Core: a tariff lookup engine using the US HTS code database (public, free). Input: product category + country of origin. Output: current tariff rate + dollar impact on their margin. Then layer a supplier pivot tool: given their product category, surface alternative sourcing countries (Vietnam, India, Mexico pre-tariff) with comparative cost data. Use USITC and World Bank trade data for the sourcing alternatives. Wrap in a clean Next.js app.
Revenue Model
Freemium: calculate up to 5 SKUs free. Pro: $29/month for unlimited + CSV export + alerts when tariff rates change on your products. Agency tier: $99/month, bulk analysis for client catalogs. The agency tier is the real opportunity — import consultants, freight forwarders, and e-commerce agencies would pay to run this for clients.
Effort
1 week to MVP. HTS code lookups are well-documented. The supplier pivot data takes some curation but much of it is public. The hard engineering is building the CSV import + bulk analysis, which is the feature that justifies the price.
Risk
Tariff policy is unpredictable — rates change, exemptions come and go, whole categories get carved out. Your data becomes stale fast. The maintenance burden is real. Also: this is an acutely time-sensitive market. If the tariff regime normalises or reverses, demand could collapse. It's a bet on sustained trade war, not a diversified product.
Verdict
7/10. Built and live. Real demand, clear monetization, right timing. The fragility is tied to the geopolitical situation — this is a "make money now" product, not a durable long-term business. Treat it as a sprint, not a marathon.
Built and live. Real demand, clear monetization, right timing. A "make money now" product tied to the tariff cycle — sprint, don't marathon.