How Tariffs Changed the Sewing Machine Business Overnight
A behind-the-scenes story about tariffs, badge engineering, and a bulk order that will help a small family business thrive
Greetings everybody,
Today I want to share story that takes you behind the scenes of The Sewing Machine Shop, my father’s sewing machine retail and repair business in Northern California.
This story brings together a handful of different sewing machine topics that I’ve written about over the past year or so, and I think people might find it interesting to see how all of these things weave together through the lens of a small family business.
Thank you for reading, and thank you for your subscribership and support. I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season.
Warm regards,
—Cale
Tariffs
The story starts with new tariffs being imposed on goods imported to the United States over the past ~6 months, which have had a particularly tangible effect on the price of electronic products imported from Asia.
The vast majority of the machines we sell at our store are made in Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, and Japan. Sewing machines imported from these four countries fall subject to “reciprocal tariff” rates brought on by Executive Order 14257.
Thailand: ~ 36% tariff
Taiwan: ~ 32% tariff
Japan: ~ 15% tariff
Vietnam: ~ 46% tariff
As of the day I am publishing this article, there are very few machine models that haven’t seen some sort of price hike. Some machines have shot up in price a little. Some machines have shot up in price significantly. Here are a few concrete examples:
Juki TL-2010 MAP (Minimum Advertised Price, which is set by the manufacturer) rose $100, from $999 to $1,099 (Made in Vietnam)
Baby Lock Triumph MAP rose $500, from $4,999 to $5,499 (Made in Japan)
Janome Skyline S6 AE MAP rose $200, from $1,699 to $1,999 (Made in Taiwan)
Our Favorite Machine Skyrockets in Price
Gun to my head, if I had to pick my favorite top-of-the-line sewing machine in the world, I’d pick the Janome Continental M8.
From the technician’s perspective, the machine is extremely well-built and (in my opinion) the most reliable in the world. We simply don’t see problems with the M8, and we expect them to continue performing at a high level for decades to come.
From a sales perspective, I love selling the M8 because it’s my #1 customer satisfaction machine. Sewists love it. The combination of 13.5” throat space, the powder-coated flatbed frame, and the brushless servo motor creates a unique sewing experience that’s genuinely enjoyable for the user. Add on the stitch regulator, walking foot, pivot function, plus a litany of other useful features, and you’re looking at a bona fide dream machine for people who love sewing.
For a long time, we priced the Janome Continental M8 pretty aggressively in an effort to get this beast into the homes of as many sewing enthusiasts as possible. But because of the tariffs, we had to raise the price of the M8 by nearly $1,000, which pushed it into a new price point that made it really difficult to sell.
The decrease in M8 sales really hurt the business. Needless to say, we were looking for ways to solve this problem.
An Opportunity Presents Itself
An interesting fact about Janome is that they make sewing machines for a bunch of different brands, such as Baby Lock, Bernette (Bernina), and Elna. This is a practice that’s not uncommon in the automobile industry, known as badge engineering.
Anyways, all Elna sewing machines made in 2025 are manufactured by Janome. In fact, other than the name on the cover of the machine, they’re literally identical to the Janome equivalent in every conceivable way.
Although we don’t normally sell Elna machines at The Sewing Machine Shop, we are technically a certified Elna dealer. And with the price of the Janome Continental M8 skyrocketing — as well as other Janome machines like the MC6700 and MC9480 — my dad started looking at the price of Elna equivalents to our Janome favorites.
What he discovered was that his cost on the Elnas was significantly lower than the Janome equivalents, even after the recent tariff-driven Janome price hike. The Elna 792 Pro, which is the identical equivalent to the Janome Continental M8, was priced especially low. At that cost, he could sell the Elna M8/792 Pro at the same pre-tariff Janome M8 price.
Still, my dad went one step further. He saw that there were 85 Elna M8s in stock, so he called our rep at Janome and asked if they would lower the cost per machine if he bought all 85 of them.
Our rep was blown away. This is not the type of call he gets every day. He actually had to call his boss (the VP of Janome) and ask if he was allowed to sell all their Elna M8s to one dealership.
The Outcome
In the end, Janome would only sell my dad 70 units of the Elna M8, saying they needed to save a few for other dealers — but they did reduce the cost per unit because it was such a massive order.
This allowed us to lower the price of the Elna M8 (technically, the Elna 792 Pro) even more, down to $5,799, making the cost to the customer lower than the pre-tariff price of the Janome M8. We also got good pricing on the Elna equivalents of the Janome MC6700 and the Janome MC9480.
The first portion of shipments was fulfilled last week:
Conclusion
The more I learn about the family business, the more respect I have for my dad. The financial risk he takes on a daily basis is something not everyone can stomach, and it’s at the forefront of my mind whenever he makes massive purchases like this.
Depending on the vendor and the order, our business is typically given somewhere between 30–90 day terms to pay for machines once they’re delivered. Most of the time, we’re buying between 4–10 units of a single model, with the expectation that we’ll have sold most (if not all) of them by the time payment is due.
That’s not going to happen here. It might take over a year to sell all of these Elna machines, which means we’ll be operating at a loss in the short term until they eventually move.
My dad is well aware of this, yet he was keen to make the bulk order anyway. He’s been around sewing machines for 40+ years and is an engineer at heart. He truly knows how good the M8 is; this isn’t bias or a hunch. It’s objectively the most impressively engineered home sewing machine ever made. All of them will sell eventually, as long as we can communicate what we know.
Before making the purchase official, Dad reached out to my brother, Lewis, and to me, and asked whether we thought we could successfully tell the story of the Elna M8 / 792 Pro to our customer base. If not, they wouldn’t sell in a timely fashion, and the order probably wouldn’t be worth making.
I’m confident we can tell that story, and I told him so. He’s imparted an ethos of education and transparency into The Sewing Machine Shop, which gives us a unique ability to show prospective buyers why this is such a good deal. We already have written material on tariffs, badge engineering, brushless servo motors, powder-coating, and more. We can show them the frame. We can show them the motor. We can show them the effects of tariffs over the past six months, and we can show them how we’ve worked around those tariffs to create a genuine win-win for both our business and the customer.
It’s honestly a joy to be a part of a business like this, partially because I get to work with my dad and brother, and partly because I think we’re doing something different compared to every other sewing machine dealership in the country. It’s a big reason why I love sewing machines and love my job.
Thank you for reading!
If you find my work valuable, please share this publication with your fellow sewists. Your support goes a long way in helping me to continue to write.
Thank you,
—Cale Schoenberg
Very informative article. Thank you for explaining how the tariffs have affected your business. As another commenter said, it’s only hurting everyone. I’ve bought machines from you and had them serviced by you- you’re the most reputable & honest sewing machine shop I’ve ever done business with. I drive almost 70 miles to have my machines serviced ONLY by you.
Thank you for a very enlightening article. It helps to see that what a product IS, is more important than what it's CALLED.