TariffRadar

Know which of your planned purchases are about to get hit by tariffs — and exactly when to buy each one.

Date: 2026-06-02 Form factor: Web app (single-page; mobile-friendly) Status: Prototype

What it is

TariffRadar is a personal "buy-before-the-spike" radar for the 2026 tariff era. You list the things you're planning to buy — a laptop, a washer/dryer, a sofa, winter tires — and TariffRadar scores each one for tariff exposure: its country of origin, its current import-tariff rate, any scheduled rate change and its date, and how much of that tariff is still working its way onto the shelf price. It then hands back a plain verdict per item — Buy now, Watch, or No rush — plus a projected price after the spike and how much you'd save by acting before it lands.

The prototype runs a real household's 12-item wishlist through an in-browser pricing engine you can re-tune live: drag the budget, buy-now horizon, pass-through, and act-threshold sliders, filter by category, and watch every verdict and dollar figure recompute instantly.

Who it serves

Everyday shoppers with a few big-ticket purchases on deck during a period of rising, tariff-driven prices. In 2026, U.S. inflation is forecast to climb as businesses pass tariff costs through to consumers, and durable goods — electronics, appliances, furniture, tools, toys — are squarely in the blast radius. The specific pain: people know prices are rising and that some items are about to jump, but they have no way to tell which of their own planned purchases are exposed, by how much, or when — so they either panic-stockpile everything or get caught flat-footed when the price steps up. Concrete personas:

• The big-purchase planner deciding whether to buy the laptop and OLED TV now or wait — and wanting the dollar difference, not vibes.
• The home-project household mid-kitchen-remodel, where cabinets already jumped to a 50% tariff and the pass-through tail is still climbing.
• The deal-timer who'll happily wait on low-impact items (US-made patio set, modest-ticket shoes) but wants a nudge the moment a meaningful spike is scheduled.

Why it could be profitable

Monetization is freemium consumer SaaS with affiliate and B2B layers:

• Free: Track up to 5 items, see verdicts and projected increases.
• Pro ($5/mo): Unlimited items, spike + price-drop alerts (email/push) as scheduled rate-change dates approach, retailer price comparison, and a "best month to buy" calendar.
• Affiliate revenue: Every item has a "Shop [retailer] →" link; TariffRadar earns commission on purchases its urgency nudges drive (Amazon, Best Buy, Home Depot, Wayfair affiliate programs). This monetizes the free tier without a paywall.
• B2B urgency widget: License the "this price is scheduled to rise — buy before [date]" engine to retailers as an honest, data-backed conversion widget on product pages, billed per impression or rev-share.

The timing is the thesis. Consumer-imported prices were already up 2.3% by mid-February 2026, Fed researchers reported a "full pass-through" of tariff costs to consumers by May 2026, and the average U.S. household faces a ~$1,500 tariff-driven cost increase in 2026. Roughly 40% of consumers said they'd stockpile ahead of hikes, and shoppers pulled forward **autos (12%), furniture (10%), and large electronics (9%)** specifically because of tariffs (GlobalData). The behavior is here and growing — what's missing is a tool that turns "prices are going up" into "this item, this much, by this date — buy it now." TariffRadar is that tool.

Form factor & scope

Single-page web app, sized for mobile and desktop. Scope-locked to the decision layer — TariffRadar does not transact, hold payment, or scrape live retailer prices; it is the radar and the verdict that sit in front of your shopping. The minimum viable scope demonstrated here:

1. See your wishlist scored, each item tagged Buy now / Watch / No rush with the rule that fired.
2. Re-tune the model — budget, buy-now horizon, tariff pass-through, and the dollar threshold that earns a "Buy now."
3. Filter by category and re-sort by urgency, projected increase, soonest rate change, or price.
4. Read the headline KPIs (items on radar, wishlist value, projected increase if you wait, savings if you act) and the tariff-exposed share of your budget.
5. Export a plain-text buy plan grouped by verdict — copy or download.

How to run it

1. Open index.html in any modern browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari).
2. Drag the Budget, Buy-now horizon, Pass-through, and Threshold sliders, or toggle the category chips — every verdict, KPI, and dollar figure recomputes instantly.
3. Re-sort the radar (urgency / increase / date / price) from the dropdown.
4. Click Copy buy plan or Download .txt to export your verdict list.

No build step, no API keys, no accounts. Sample data is embedded inside index.html as a <script type="application/json"> block so the page works directly from file:// with no local server. A standalone copy of the same data also lives at sample-data.json in this folder.

What's in this prototype

• A live pricing engine (script.js) that, for each item, models two effects: a scheduled tariff step (rate change × price, on its effective date) and a lag tail (a slice of the current tariff still passing through over the ~7-month pass-through lag), both scaled by per-item and global pass-through.
• A verdict rule that returns Buy now / Watch / No rush from the projected dollar increase, whether a scheduled change falls inside your horizon, and whether the item has tariff exposure at all (domestic / zero-tariff items never get false urgency).
• A 12-item household wishlist spanning electronics, appliances, furniture, auto, tools, toys, and apparel — crafted to exercise every path: a July electronics step (laptop, OLED TV), an imminent appliance step (washer/dryer, <3 weeks out), post-hike lag tails (sofa at 30%, cabinets at 50%), far-out watches (toys in October), low-impact no-rush items (shoes), a flat item (no scheduled change), and a US-made zero-exposure item.
• Editable controls — budget, buy-now horizon, pass-through %, and act-threshold sliders, plus category filter chips and a sort dropdown, all wired to instant re-evaluation.
• KPIs + a budget-exposure bar showing how much of your planned budget rides on tariff-exposed goods.
• A plain-text buy-plan export (copy or download) grouped by verdict — the artifact you'd actually shop from.

Roadmap

• Live tariff data — wire the engine to a maintained tariff/HTS schedule and origin-country dataset so rates and effective dates update automatically.
• Real retailer price feeds and price-history, so "projected increase" is validated against observed shelf prices, not modeled estimates.
• Spike + price-drop alerts (email/push) that fire as a scheduled rate-change date approaches.
• Barcode / URL paste to add an item, auto-classifying its category, origin, and likely tariff exposure.
• Affiliate-linked "best month to buy" calendar and a one-tap "add to cart at [retailer]" handoff.
• A B2B embeddable widget that shows the honest "buy before [date]" projection on a retailer's own product page.

Sources

• Fortune — Fed researchers see a 'full pass-through' of tariff costs onto consumers — near-complete pass-through of tariffs to consumer prices, May 2026.
• Morningstar — Inflation Set to Rise in 2026 as Tariff Costs Hit Consumers — durable-goods prices projected to rise ~4.5%; inflation to 2.7% in 2026.
• Tax Foundation — Tariff Tracker: 2026 Trump Tariffs & Trade War by the Numbers — ~$1,500 average per-household tariff cost in 2026; upholstered furniture to 30% and kitchen cabinets/vanities to 50% on Jan 1, 2026.
• Consumer Reports — How to Save If Tariffs Raise Prices on Tech and Appliances — electronics & appliances among the biggest hikes; "don't wait to buy items you already planned to purchase."
• NBC News — Buy now, stock up or delay: what consumers are snapping up over tariffs — GlobalData: autos ~12%, furniture ~10%, large electronics ~9% pulled forward because of tariffs.
• Chicago Booth Review — Americans Are Stockpiling Ahead of Tariffs — ~40% of consumers likely to stockpile; expectations of ~10% rise on imported goods over the next year.