You’re paying more for stuff right now, but businesses are too.

Wholesale prices rose 4.7% annually in July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. That’s a bit slower than a month ago but still elevated thanks to high energy costs. We’ll start today’s newsletter with a look at how small businesses are coping with higher prices.

Later we’ll talk about the messy state of tariff refunds, tasteless AI and the hot new emoji. See you tomorrow. 🫰  — Tony Wagner, newsletter editor  

As soon as you walk into Tochterman’s Fishing Tackle, a store in Baltimore, you get hit with the smell of shrimp and garlic. That scent comes from gels and sprays meant to go on fishing lures, and some of those lures are getting more expensive.

Take biodegradable imitation eels as an example. It’s not the bait that’s going up in price, but the jar it’s packaged in.

“The price on getting the material to make this jar has gone up considerably,” said Tony Tochterman, one of the store’s owners.

Right now, a jar of the fake eels goes for about $22. Tochterman expects that’ll go up to cover the increased cost of the plastic packaging, which is derived from oil.

“A lot of things are done because of petroleum,” said Tochterman.

Transportation costs are also up. Tochterman said a lot of his suppliers are upping the minimum he has to order to get free shipping. So, he’s buying more of certain products to avoid paying for shipping.

“You can't afford to absorb that,” he said.

Around the corner at Local Stitch, a brand new yarn store, owner Natasha Jones is facing the same challenge. Fewer of her distributors are covering shipping.

Meanwhile, when she adds online sales later this year, she won’t be able to cover it, either.

“I don't have enough of a profit margin to be able to provide free shipping in the way that these big corporations do,” she said.

She’s relying on customers who want to seek out her unique product. Some of the wool for sale is dyed in house. Jones’s fingers are actually tinged blue from indigo.

“Sometimes my cat's paws are blue, as well,” she laughed.

Artificial intelligence models can look at millions of lamps, and left to its own devices an AI would generate the perfect average of all lamps. Kind of boring.

That’s why, depending on your point of view, personal taste has become a human differentiator or a bottleneck for Silicon Valley to solve. Haigney came on “Marketplace Tech” to wrap our heads around that puzzle, and how firms can (or can’t) solve it.

The sob emoji was the most used in 2025, according to data from Google. It jumped three spots, over 😂,  🤣  and the classic red heart ♥️ because younger people find it so versatile.

The New York Times analyzed emoji use across generations to account for which glyphs are on the rise — and which ones are falling out of fashion. Here’s a gift link to the full list, now excuse me while I rethink how I chat with my zoomer colleagues 🗿🗿🗿🗿