Keeping Wood Tactics Alive during Trade Instability

The Collateral Damage of the Trade War: My Journey Keeping Wood Tactics Alive

 Before I dive into the details of the past year, I want to be clear that this is not a political statement. At Wood Tactics, we do not wade into politics, and this article isn't about taking sides. However, as a small business owner, I believe it is important to be transparent about the economic realities that have shaped our shop over the last year. This is simply an account of the operational challenges we have faced and how we are adapting to keep the equipment running.

I found my company caught in a pincer move that nearly took us down due to tariffs on unexpected previous international partners and in general a bad economy overall.

A General Unease

When the trade war headlines started hitting in 2025, I felt a general unease. As the owner of Wood Tactics, I have always built my business on the pride of being "Made in the USA." I understood what tariffs meant for my tool parts, equipment, supplies and my customers.

While I appreciate the removal of de minimis from products from China which would help curb cheap, badly made and sometimes dangerous knockoff goods. Tariffs are another thing entirely as I understood that the tabletop gaming industry is built on work being done by factories overseas with no replacement options in the North America for them.

The Wholesale Drought: A 61% Revenue Cliff

The most immediate blow came from B2B partners. When import tariffs that spiked as high as 145 percent, the board game industry did not just slow down it went into total paralysis. Because the vast majority of games are printed overseas, publishers suddenly faced six-figure tax bills just to get their products into the country. Projects were scrapped, expansions were delayed, and upcoming Kickstarter's were pulled from the calendar.

The wholesale and bulk sale market essentially evaporated overnight as everything was canceled by February 2025. Every single board game company I work with canceled their wholesale orders for my specialty components. I don't blame them, the companies either folded, or they had to stop their projects entirely due to unpredictable and unaffordable costs.

Because our business relies on those flagship projects, I watched my revenue drop by 61 percent in a single year. My busiest months of the year (January to June) were almost dead, the business that sustains us through slower summer months... gone.

The Death of My European and Canadian Reach

Perhaps the most heartbreaking part of 2025 was watching a large part of my international community disappear. Historically, 54 percent of my retail sales came from customers in Europe and Canada. These were some of my most loyal supporters, but as the U.S. implemented aggressive trade policies, those countries responded with reciprocal tariffs of their own.

Beyond the actual taxes (tariffs), a general sense of uneasiness took hold. Between the skyrocketing costs of shipping and the perceived instability of doing business with U.S. companies, my international customers simply stopped clicking "buy." In the entirety of 2025, I only shipped two orders to Canada and Europe combined. While my long time customers of these locations didn't blame us and even sympathized with us, they refused to buy from an American company anymore. 

I even had some customers place orders from Europe and Canada only to then realize later I was in the US and then cancel their orders due to that. For every canceled order I lose 3% of the sale as the bank always keeps it's money. At the end of the year I had 0 revenue for these markets due to the few cancelations from Europe and Canada.

The Exhaustion of the Stockpile

I saw the storm clouds gathering early on, and in late 2024 I did everything I could to protect my prices. I spent a significant amount of capital to stockpile raw materials, components and equipment parts ahead of time, hoping to insulate Wood Tactics from the inevitable price shocks. For a while, it worked. I was able to maintain my pricing for the entire year even as the world around us became more expensive.

However, towards the end of 2025, those reserves finally dwindled to critical levels. The materials I had fought so hard to secure ran out, and I was forced to re-enter a market where costs had shifted drastically. No matter how hard I try certain equipment, parts and materials only come from over seas or the places that make them here rely on raw materials from overseas locations.

The "American Lumber" Paradox

Even though I source 100 percent of my hardwood lumber from right here in the United States, I was not immune to the rising costs. You would think American wood would stay stable, but as tariffs made imported wood from Canada more expensive, the demand for domestic timber skyrocketed.

U.S. mills could not keep up with the sudden surge in domestic demand, and they raised their prices across the board. I found myself paying 20-30 percent more for the exact same walnut, cherry and maple I have been using for years.

The Hidden Cost of the Digital Boom

While I was fighting the battle of material costs, a new overhead expense hit me from an unexpected direction: my utility bill. Operating in Virginia means I am at the epicenter of the global data center boom. As these massive facilities expand to meet the demand for AI and cloud computing, they have placed an unprecedented strain on our local power grid.

Over the last year, my energy costs have increased by 30 percent. Between the massive grid upgrades required to serve these data centers and the overall surge in regional power demand, small businesses like mine and residents of the area are footing the bill not the Data Centers. It is an ironic twist: the same digital infrastructure that powers the websites where I sell my dice is simultaneously making it 30 percent more expensive just to keep my saws running.

The Squeeze on Every Edge

The financial pressure did not stop at the wood or the power. The specialty finishes I use  that give our products their signature fee, jumped in price by 10 to 30 percent. These finishes rely on global components that were caught in the crossfire of reciprocal tariffs.

Even the basic necessities of running a shop became more expensive. My packaging costs such as boxes, mailers, and protective inserts climbed by 20 to 40 percent. Paper for printers, Toner for printers, staples all the little things increased 20-50%. Every time I turned around, another essential material was more expensive than it was the month before.

Gen Con: An attempt to revive Wholesale

In a final attempt to break the stalemate, I headed to Gen Con something I personally always wanted to do anyways. We didn't have a booth, so I spent the convention meeting with publishers face-to-face, walking the floor to showcase our designs. I wanted to see if I could personally revive the wholesale and bulk market.

The reception was overwhelmingly positive. I met with publisher after publisher who handled the products, praised the craftsmanship, and expressed genuine interest. But as soon as we talked business, I heard the same story over and over: "We love your work, but we’re just waiting."

The narrative was identical across the board: they had canceled major projects, downscaled luxury editions, or paused development entirely. Many were even running "Tariff" sales just so they can pay for their shipments to get out of port.

The financial wounds from the trade war have forced them all into a holding pattern. Gen Con proved that while the demand for our items is strong, the industry's capacity to pull the trigger on premium projects is still locked behind a wall of caution.

A Bright Spot: Domestic Growth

Despite the heavy losses overseas, there was one genuine bright spot in 2025: our direct website domestic retail sales grew by 21%. While this growth wasn't even close to offsetting the massive losses from our European and Canadian markets, it has given me a lot of hope for the future. It proves that the demand for our unique way of doing things is strong right here at home and people are starting to find us directly. Our reach into the gaming community has deepened.

Survival: Pivoting the Product Lineup

This financial pressure changed more than just my bank account; it changed what I actually build. As the market shifted, I realized that customers are now almost exclusively buying smaller, more affordable products. To keep the shop sustainable, I’ve had to make some difficult decisions regarding our catalog.

We are stopping the production of full board games, moving them to a "special request only" basis. I am letting our current stock sell out, and once it's gone, those listings will be removed from the store. I'm also stopping certain game token lines. All of our larger, more ambitious ideas on the back burner indefinitely.

Design has become a game of "survival math," where I have to prioritize items that provide immediate value while keeping the footprint and most importantly the risk small. Each piece of wood I use is analyzed for a current sellable product as I can't afford to waste materials in failed development efforts.

Looking Forward

Unfortunately, I had to raise my prices just to keep the shop running. I have kept largely the same pricing structure for 4 years, it's no longer possible.

The scars are deep. The wholesale market is not going to bounce back instantly; my partners are still rebuilding the "rainy day" funds that were wiped out by those tax bills. My over the border customers are probably gone for a long time. The recession that is already here is going to last awhile. 

I always understood what happens to "Luxury" items during downturns, I didn't walk into this business blind. You see I grew up in a family of Carpenters, Plasterers and Drywallers. I've lived through recessions many times in a front row seat and know what it does to trades people. So I've always prepared and watched for it, but it's still hard to deal with especially for such a prolonged period of instability on top of a market downturn.

I am still here, and I am still making things. I'm not going anywhere, just pivoting to adapt to the current market.