The Easter special at many retailers this year involves higher price tags.

As retailers have been warning, their costs are rising as cotton and other materials get more expensive, laborers in China demand higher wages and fuel prices go up. By this fall, many have said, they must charge customers more. Because retailers pay for items about six months in advance, spring merchandise on the shelves for a few months was ordered and paid for in late summer, before costs soared. And when costs first started creeping up, clothing makers used an array of tactics to keep prices flat, whether by moving production to lower-cost countries like Bangladesh, using cheaper fabrics or ordering early to lock in prices.

By this time, though, retailers are running out of ways to avoid passing on the higher expenses. An uptick has quietly begun.

Companies are “raising prices, but are trying not to broadcast it for competitive reasons, and it also doesn’t look good for public relations reasons,” said John D. Morris, an analyst with BMO Capital Markets.