Some retailers and consumer goods companies are reducing prices with help from a big and fortuitously timed pot of money: tariff refunds.

Companies including e.l.f. Beauty, Walmart and Tractor Supply are funding price cuts with refund payments due to them after the Supreme Court earlier this year struck down President Trump's global tariffs. The price cuts are aimed at boosting sales at a time when many consumers are looking for value, stretched thin from years of rising costs. Tariff refunds are also helping companies protect their profit margins amid a spike in inflation.

Companies have struggled to appeal to inflation-fatigued consumers who have faced higher prices for everything from coffee to beef and gasoline. Some companies began rolling back certain prices earlier this year. Tariff refunds are providing the financial backing for more companies to do the same.

E.l.f.'s tariff refund offered the company a rare opportunity to tweak pricing, according to Chief Financial Officer Mandy Fields. In May, the beauty company launched a test to gauge consumer sensitivity to price reductions, after reporting slower-than-expected sales growth at its own brand during its March quarter. Last year, the company had raised prices by $1 across its portfolio to offset the impact of tariffs.

The company began its test by discounting the price of its Halo Glow Skin Tint by $4, Fields said. The move resulted in a nearly 40% increase in unit sales. The company then expanded the test across almost its entire portfolio of beauty and skin-care products, with most items reduced by $1, to see where volumes increased enough to offset the discount. E.l.f. ultimately made the price cuts permanent on roughly 10% of its lineup, including its Cream Glide Lip Liner and other products across its lip, eye, face and skin lines.

"The consumer is telling us, they're voting with their dollar," Fields said. "These price reductions are resonating."

E.l.f. so far has received roughly $50 million in refunded tariff payments, plus $2 million in interest, and expects another roughly $10 million. During its quarter ended June 30, net sales climbed 36%, to $479.4 million, compared with a year earlier. Pricing and product mix drove roughly 39 percentage points of that growth, offsetting a three-percentage-point dip in volumes, Fields said on the earnings call.

Higher gas prices that followed the outbreak of the Iran war have put pressure on consumer budgets. After prices at the pump rose above $4 a gallon, consumers began making trade-offs in their spending, devoting more money to gas and less to other things, said John David Rainey, Walmart's CFO, during an earnings call this month.

"June was a little more obvious as we look at the quarter in terms of customers making trade-offs. And it's why we have leaned so heavily into lower prices," Rainey said. Walmart this month said it rolled back prices on 11,000 items, including ground beef. It funded the price cuts with refunds worth $2.9 billion.

Businesses are facing their own inflationary pressures, including for transportation and commodities, and in some cases significantly higher than what they planned for, executives have said on recent earnings calls. Still, given where their shoppers are, many management teams aren't raising prices, or are doing so on select items. Many executives view rising costs in their businesses as temporary.

Companies are also protecting profit margins through productivity measures, and leaning on tariff refunds to weather rising costs, according to Lauren Lieberman, an equity research analyst at Barclays covering cosmetics, beverages and personal-care companies. "That's kind of cushioning the blow," she said.

Appliance maker SharkNinja last year raised prices in response to U.S. tariffs, but has held the line this year, according to CFO Adam Quigley. The company expects to receive refunds totaling $247.1 million, which it's using to offset higher costs. Without the refund, the company might have boosted prices in the U.S. because of persistent commodity and inflationary pressure, Quigley said.

At Tractor Supply, customers squeezed by inflation and other pressures are hunting for value. To keep them shopping, the farm-and-ranch chain is similarly turning to tariff refunds to absorb rising freight and fuel costs rather than passing them on. Instead of raising prices, the company is rolling out promotions and lowering prices on items such as pine shavings and premium pet-food, said Chief Financial Officer Kurt Barton.

"In this environment, as refunds on tariffs are coming through, our commitment is to be able to utilize that to provide great value back to our customer," he said, declining to share the refund amount the company has received. "So it's where we're reinvesting today to be able to help maintain our margins."

The company's gross margin rose to 37.1% in the three months ended June 27, up from 36.9% a year earlier. But Tractor Supply expects freight costs to remain elevated as tariff refund benefits fade in the second half of the year, which executives expect will pressure its gross margin in its third and fourth quarters.