Consumer Products, Appliances and Durables

A refrigerator, a cordless drill, a furnace, a Barbie doll and a motorcycle have little in common as products, but their makers share one problem: they sell branded goods to households through powerful retailers, at prices consumers compare in seconds, while carrying factories, steel and plastic costs, freight bills and tariffs that consumers never see. Consumer durables — appliances, HVAC, tools, furniture, powersports — sell with the housing market and replacement cycles; consumer products such as toys are seasonal, fashion-driven and mostly made in Asia. The US industry has been shaped by four forces since 2000: offshoring of labour-intensive production to China and then Mexico; consolidation of brands into a few global groups (Whirlpool–Maytag in 2006; Haier's purchase of GE Appliances, closed Jun 2016 for ~$5.6bn; Electrolux's blocked attempt in 2015); retailer power, as Home Depot, Lowe's, Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon and Costco took most of the shelf; and trade remedies, from Harley-Davidson's Section 201 protection in 1983 to the 2018 washer safeguard that Whirlpool sought, to the Section 232 steel duties that reached household appliances on 23 Jun 2025 and the 2026 metals overhaul. The 2025–26 tariff sequence hit the sector harder than most: Mattel withdrew its 2025 guidance in May 2025 and said it expected ~$270m of extra tariff costs that year (reported); Whirlpool, the largest US appliance maker, argued that its US factories gave it a tariff advantage over importers, yet reported net sales down ~9.6% in Q1 2026 as demand weakened (company release, reported). This section explains the economics of brand vs factory, the appliance industry company by company (US first, then Europe and Asia), HVAC, tools, toys, engineered consumer goods and powersports, the trade remedies that shaped US footprints, the role of retailers and private label, and how an experienced operator thinks about where to make a consumer durable.