Tariffs and ongoing volatility have impacted global trade and exerted cost pressure across nearly all industries, creating ripple effects that demand companies rethink core strategies like pricing, supply chain management, and customer engagement. While comprehensive solutions such as supplier diversification take time to implement, companies can apply actionable, short-term pricing strategies to tackle the immediate challenges.

The following six strategic pricing approaches offer a roadmap to protect your margins while maintaining customer trust during times of economic volatility.

Temporary surcharges have become a widely accepted strategy for handling unforeseen cost fluctuations. Whether through fuel surcharges, supply chain fees, or similar adjustments, businesses across industries successfully implemented this approach during the COVID-19 pandemic.

When properly communicated, surcharge-based pricing enables enterprises to recover costs from tariff increases while avoiding broad price hikes. Transparent surcharges—for example, a "Tariff Adjustment Fee" or "Import Cost Recovery Surcharge"—signal these adjustments as temporary, external cost-driven measures rather than arbitrary or permanent increases. This strategy works particularly well in B2B settings, where line-item charges are common and expected.