Tariffs: what to change on your website when prices move
When a customs tariff changes, your price changes, and that price is displayed in more than ten places that never update together. The question is not what to change, but in what order, so that a gap between two displays doesn’t cost you a merchant account or a sale.
- The same price lives in more than ten places, and each one has its own refresh delay.
- The costliest gap sits between the landing page price and the checkout price: a warning first, then account suspension.
- Whatever sends itself gets frozen first, or a scheduled email leaves with the old price.
- Adding a customs fee line at the end of checkout is the riskiest reflex.
- The deliverable that pays is the register of display points, built once and reused at every change.
On this page
What is a price display point
A price display point is every place, on your site or off it, where a price, a lead time or a fee amount is visible to a buyer or to a platform. A single price often occupies more than ten of them. These points don’t update at the same speed, or by the same person. Taking inventory of those points is the only way to know how long a tariff change actually takes at your company.
What triggers the update
On June 24, 2026, the Federal Register published the indefinite suspension of the US $800 exemption, outside the international postal network. That text says nothing about your website. It still moves a cost, and that cost ends up displayed somewhere.
You calculate the effect on margin, someone changes the price in the catalogue, and the matter is considered settled. The other places where that price lives keep the old amount for hours, sometimes for weeks.
Tariffs are not the only trigger. A carrier revising its rate grids or a currency sliding produces the same work. The American rule itself is covered in the end of the US exemption.
The ten display points of a single price
Here is the typical inventory of a merchant shipping outside Quebec. Build yours before talking about order.
The product page
The only point everyone names. If the site pulls its price from a single database, the step takes a few minutes. If not, it is page by page.
The cart
The cart recalculates the total with its own rules: free shipping thresholds, quantity discounts, promo codes. An old rule sometimes cancels your increase.
Checkout
Here the amount becomes a commitment. It is also the value platforms compare against the one on your page. See where checkout loses buyers.
The merchant product feed
The feed is the file sent to platforms to power product ads. It often refreshes once a day, and the old price holds until then. See why the feed outranks the campaign.
Ads and their extensions
A price typed by hand into an ad headline or an extension doesn’t move on its own. Those mentions live in the advertising account.
The structured data on the page
This is the information coded into the page for search engines, including the price. It sometimes comes from a different source than the visible text. See what Google reads in your markup.
Comparison and pricing pages
Comparison tables, plan pages and blog posts carry amounts typed by hand. Nobody owns them, and they survive redesigns.
Downloadable documents
PDF price lists and catalogues get copied, circulate and resurface six months later. They also get indexed: your PDF sheets ranking in your place.
Automated emails already scheduled
Cart reminders, welcome sequences, Thursday’s newsletter. Many carry a frozen price and go out in the middle of your update.
The cache and the delivery network
The cache is a saved copy of your pages, served in place of the real one. Without a purge, the new price exists for you alone.
The questions to settle before the next change
An owner doesn’t need the detail of every point. What they need is how long their company takes to change a price everywhere.
- How many display points does our price occupy, and which one has no owner?
- What is our longest refresh delay, and where does it sit?
- Do our prices come from a single source, or are some still typed by hand?
- What happens to an order placed while two displays contradict each other?
- Who can suspend the automated sends, and how fast?
A team that has inventoried its display points gives you a number and a delay in hours. A team that hasn’t answers that the price gets changed in the catalogue and everything else follows.
Taking inventory of the display points and putting a number on the change delay is part of what we cover in a paid audit.
The update order, and why it matters
The order is not a preference of method. Every step taken at the wrong moment opens a window during which two displays contradict each other. That window is what costs money.
Freeze whatever sends itself
Before touching a single price, suspend the automated sends and scheduled posts that carry an amount. It is the only step that comes before the change.
Change the price at its source
Edit the data where the site and the feed will read it, not in the display. Without a single source, settle that point first: the maturity of your product data.
Purge the cache and the delivery network
Without a purge, the public page shows the old amount while your database is current. It is the most silent mistake of the lot.
Check the page, the cart and checkout together
Redo the path with a real product, within the same minute. Google documents that a gap between the landing page price and the checkout price leads to a warning, then to account suspension.
Push the feed and confirm it refreshed
Trigger the refresh rather than waiting for the schedule, then check the confirmation. Otherwise your ads promise an amount your checkout no longer honours.
Redo the prices typed by hand
Ads, extensions, comparison pages, pricing pages, downloadable documents. This step comes later, because it is long and blocks no sale.
Turn the sends back on
You reopen the sequences once the six previous steps are verified. An email that restarts too early walks the customer straight into a contradiction.
You close what commits the company first, then fix what represents it. A gap at checkout produces an order sold at a loss, a stale price in a table produces a phone call.
The cost of a tariff change is not measured by the new price, but by how long two of your displays contradict each other.
Falia frameworkWhat you prepare only once
A company facing its third tariff change in a year shouldn’t start from scratch. Four preparations turn a two-day project into a two-hour execution.
The first is the register. One line per display point, three columns: where it sits, who owns it, how long it takes to reflect a new price.
The second is the single source. As long as amounts are typed by hand, every change is paid for in hours of searching. Replace them with a reference back to the product record.
The third targets downloadable documents. A PDF price list circulates long after the date it was written. A pricing page gets corrected once and for all. Otherwise the document carries a validity date on its first line.
The fourth is the fee display rule. The temptation, when a tariff lands, is to add a surcharge at the end of the path. Google asks that additional fees be included in the base price or declared in the shipping cost, never as a separate line. The Competition Bureau treats drip pricing as a concerning practice under the Competition Act. It allows an exception for fixed fees imposed by a government, such as sales taxes. A surcharge you set yourself doesn’t qualify: the price you are allowed to display.
Take one product, on a Tuesday morning, and change its price by one dollar. Then run a stopwatch. Note the hour when the product page shows the new amount, then the cart, checkout, the product ad and the comparison page. You get the number nobody in the company knows: the delay between a pricing decision and its application everywhere.
Before the next tariff change
Prices that move at the pace of a currency are covered in what multicurrency doesn’t settle, and grids specific to each customer in price visibility in B2B.
The effect of those amounts on abandonment is measured in the three frictions of a first international sale, and the option of going through an intermediary in marketplace or your own store.
Opening a market is at the heart of the Develop a new market goal.
Updating displayed prices falls under our work in online commerce.
Frequently asked questions about price updates
Where do you start when a tariff changes?
With whatever sends itself. Suspend the automated emails already scheduled, then change the price at its source. A send that leaves with the old price creates a promise your checkout will not honour.
Why is the merchant product feed a problem?
Because it doesn’t refresh at the pace of your site. Google documents that a gap between the landing page price and the checkout price leads to a warning, then to account suspension.
Can you add a customs fee line at checkout?
It is the riskiest reflex of all. Google asks that additional fees be included in the base price or declared in the shipping cost, not as a separate line. The Competition Bureau sees drip pricing as a concerning practice.
How long does a full price change take?
Nobody can tell you without having inventoried your display points. Once the register exists, the answer is one number per point: its refresh delay. The longest one is your real change time.
Should you keep a PDF price list?
Rarely. A downloadable document gets copied, circulates and outlives your updates. It also gets indexed, which makes it surface in search instead of your page. A pricing page gets corrected once and for all.
- Google Merchant Center, Fix inaccurate prices, accessed August 2026. Price mismatch, additional fees, correction deadline.
- Competition Bureau, Drip pricing, accessed August 2026. Competition Act and exception for fixed fees imposed by a government.
- Federal Register, Indefinite Suspension of the De Minimis Exemption, June 24, 2026, accessed August 2026.
- Baymard Institute, Cart abandonment rate statistics, September 22, 2025, accessed August 2026.
Geneviève puts the strategy for your engagement into action. She leads all our web development projects: Shopify, WordPress and the new ways of building a site with AI. She manages our team of developers and translates your business needs into technical language. She runs your organic search (SEO), your visibility in AI answers (GEO) and your site's conversion rate optimization (CRO). Her work is at the heart of three goals: Attract customers with SEO and AI, Improve your site's conversion, and Strengthen your visibility in AI answers. With Gabriel, she also builds the landing pages for your advertising campaigns. She writes mainly about SEO, AI visibility and web design.
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