Walmart Is Secretly Raising Prices More Than 50%, Employees Reveal: “EVERYTHING Went Up”
Some of the biggest price increases are happening in the toy aisles.
Walmart was forthcoming with the fact that the Trump administration’s tariffs are affecting its bottom line. In fact, just last month, Walmart CFO John David Rainey told CNBC that “the magnitude of these increases is more than any retailer can absorb.” He even went so far as to share that shoppers could expect “higher prices” on certain grocery items: “You’ll begin to see that, likely towards the tail end of this month, and then certainly much more in June.”
But now that June has arrived, it appears that Walmart is raising prices on much more than just groceries, and with much steeper increases. Employees of the big-box retailer have taken to social media to blow the whistle on the items increasing in price. Photos of new price-tag stickers show some increases up to 50 percent or more.
RELATED: Walmart Shoppers Shocked to Discover Hidden Grocery Barcodes: “So I’m Not Crazy.”
Toy prices are increasing dramatically at Walmart.
Last month, while defending the sweeping tariffs he imposed on China, Donald Trump specifically called out children’s toys and how American kids should be able to weather any resulting price hikes by having fewer things.
“All I’m saying is that a young lady, a 10-year-old-girl, 9-year-old girl, 15-year-old-girl, doesn’t need 37 dolls,” he told reporters, as CNBC reported. “She could be very happy with two or three or four or five.”
And based on price trends happening at Walmart, children very well may be getting fewer toys from their parents.
In a viral Reddit post, a Walmart employee shared a photo of a Baby Born doll’s original price sticker of $34.97 and the new price sticker of $49.97—a 43 percent increase.
Similarly, a new price sticker for a Jurassic World Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur action figure jumped from $39.92 to $55, a 38 percent increase. In April, the toy was even on sale for $20.
Yet another employee posted a photo of the price stickers for a baby Fisher-Price Rock-a-Stack toy, which went from $5.88 to $19.97—a whopping 240 percent increase. (It’s worth noting that the toy is on sale for $7.88 online.)
“I’ve been doing price changes, and some of them are absolutely INSANE. Half of them were like a 20$ increase, and some got close to even 50$ more,” the employee captioned their photo.
Someone else wrote, “Die cast cars big increases as well I noticed the 1/24 scale F1 cars went from $26 to $36 and every smaller car went up at least $3 or more,” to which a fellow employee responded, “Yup, i had 270 price changes in toys, and 240 of them were all down the car isle.”
A Walmart employee from Western North Carolina shared, “Did 185 price changes in toys on Tuesday. All $5-$30 up change.”
Yet another worked shared in a separate thread, “I work in Toys and we had about 600 price changes in the last couple days and EVERYTHING went up. Most things went up 4 dollars but the bigger toys like RCs and hover boards jumped a whole 40-50 dollars.”
RELATED: 7 Amazon Products Getting 29% More Expensive Due to Tariffs.
Other items are also getting more expensive.
In a separate viral Reddit thread, a Walmart worker showed a picture of the new price sticker for an Abu Garcia fishing reel, which jumped 45 percent, from $57.37 to $83.26.
In a comment, another employee said, “My big selling formula all went up like $3 or more. So over $20 for a small can… I’ve been apologizing to parents left and right. I feel horrible about it.”
“A 6 pack of recessed light bulbs went from $12 something to $89,” claimed a third Walmart worker.
“The wet food I buy my dogs went up like $10, it’s crazy,” shared a shopper, while another added, “Maxwell house coffee went from 12.96 to 17.97 like over night.”
“If Walmart was brave they would have printed ‘tariff cost’ before the price,” someone else quipped.
Responding to the backsplash, a Walmart spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement: “We have always worked to keep our prices as low as possible and we won’t stop. We’ll keep prices as low as we can for as long as we can given the reality of small retail margins.”
