Like most U.S.-based outdoor companies, Stout Tent is feeling the heavy strain of a new challenge: steep trade tariffs. Trade tariffs and disrupted supply chains have made sourcing high-quality canvas more expensive and unpredictable than ever, disproportionately impacting small businesses.
At Stout Tent, we’ve always been transparent with our customers. We believe now is the time to shed some light on what’s happening behind the scenes to cause rising prices or longer wait times on your favorite canvas bell tents, glamping tents, and outdoor gear.
The Heart of the Issue: A Fragile Global Supply Chain
The canvas we use in our tents isn’t just any fabric. It’s heavy-duty, 100% cotton canvas, often treated with specialized finishes (like our Sunforger tents) to make it water-resistant, mold-resistant, and built for all-season durability. This material requires a large-scale manufacturing infrastructure that, believe it or not, no longer exists in the United States.
That’s right: no U.S.-based textile mills can produce canvas at the scale or quality needed for the outdoor camping and glamping industry.
Even long-standing manufacturers like Diamond Brand Gear, which had produced canvas camping tents in the U.S. for over a century, closed their doors in 2024. While companies like Davis Tent still make tents domestically (and beautifully), their output is limited, and they, too, rely on imported canvas fabric to meet demand.
As a result, every major canvas tent brand in the U.S. now depends on international suppliers for the base materials used in the canvas tents we’ve grown accustomed to seeing at campgrounds, glamping resorts, and outdoor events.
The Stout Tent warehouse crew is stocking the shelves at our Indiana warehouse with tents and outdoor gear.
How Tariff Policies Are Straining Our Budget
In 2025, new international tariffs, particularly those affecting imports from China, have dramatically increased the cost of raw goods like canvas. The situation has only been made worse by global shipping disruptions, with vessel departures down by more than 65%. The cost to ship a single container has more than doubled, and new import duties have added up to 150% to the landed cost of our most popular products.
To put that in perspective, it’s now costing us more to import the product than we originally paid for it. And that’s before we account for storage, packaging, shipping to customers, or our operational overhead.
It’s a real bummer.
A U.S.-Based Tent Business Worth Fighting For
This isn’t just about canvas. It’s about people.
Meet some members of the Stout Tent Event crew. This crew set up hundreds of tents across America last summer (2024).
While our canvas may be sourced abroad, our business is proudly rooted in the U.S. and supports many American jobs.
Here’s what that looks like:
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Customer Service: Full-time, U.S.-based representatives are available 9–5, Monday through Friday, to help customers pick the right camping tent or resolve a shipping issue. There is no outsourced support.
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Remote Team: Work-from-home staff in five states, handling logistics, marketing, inventory management, and glamping site support.
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Event Crew: A full-time team of event directors and over 100 seasonal crew members who set up tented lodging villages at music festivals, weddings, and remote retreats across the country.
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Warehouse Operations: Our warehouse in Indiana allows us to ship most orders same-day or next-day, keeping turnaround times fast even on high-demand products like our 5M canvas bell tents.
When you purchase from Stout Tent, you’re supporting a small business that provides meaningful work to 17 full-time staff and over 100 seasonal crew members across the U.S.
What Happens Next?
We’re committed to keeping our glamping tents and canvas camping gear affordable, accessible, and built to the highest standards, but we’re also facing tough choices. Absorbing the rising costs of tariffs and shipping isn’t sustainable in the long term. We’re exploring every option, including:
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Advocating for domestic textile development
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Delaying price increases where possible
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Getting feedback from our customers to guide how we move forward
Closing Thought:
We’re not giving up on canvas, and we’re not giving up on you. With your support, we’ll continue navigating these challenges while building a stronger, more resilient future for the glamping industry, camping tent manufacturers, and the people behind small U.S.-based businesses like ours.
