Manufacturers Prices Are Increasing Again - How Much Is Too Much?

Distributors and manufacturers continue to increase their prices, driving up talks about inflation in our economy.

We heard from one of our local distributors two days ago that a number of manufacturers (listed below) have decided to increase their prices as of February 2018.

February:
HES: 2/1/18

Securitron: 2/1/18

Adams Rite: 2/1/18

Air Louvers: 2/1/18

Keri Systems: 2/1/18

Major Mfg: 2/1/18

Belwith: 2/5/18

PDQ: 2/5/18




March:

Keyline USA: 3/1/183 
/1/18
RCI: 3/19/18


These are just a few of the many manufacturers in the North American market that continue to raise prices sometimes more than once a year.

Some of the tool manufacturers above will sell specialty tools to the locksmith industry through a network of different distributors. With everyone raising the costs of machinery and tools, locksmith service providers will be passing on the increased costs to their customers in the form of higher labor prices.

When you consider that since the introduction of eCommerce through networks like eBay and Jet and Amazon among others, a great many retail establishments, including big box stores, mom and pop small businesses, even local markets all are seeing the erosion of profits from retail sales. Sometimes to the detriment where employment in these businesses is the first casualty.

Many businesses are moving with the times and introducing their own eCommerce solutions to their websites, allowing prospective customers from across the global community the ability to purchase, where previously the business would usually only service it's local geographical region.

We, as a micro-business, are not immune to the effects of rising costs either. Many services that we also must purchase to stay in business, like utilities, gasoline, registration, property taxes, insurance, shipping costs, maintenance etc are also increasing again too.

Interestingly, the stock market and mainstream media are rarely reporting that Real Time inflation has already reared it's ugly head many times over the last couple of years, which could be fooling the consumer market into thinking that the wider economy is better than it is in reality.

We dont like raising our prices, especially during tough economies, but to remain solvent and to continue feeding our families, we too are being required to raise our prices too.

With virtually all of our suppliers raising their prices, we will be passing on those increases to our customers too.

We havent raised our Meroni Doorware and Furniture prices in over 6 years, even though the manufacturer has been required to raise their costs. But with the increased shipping and customs costs (to even bring product in from abroad) combined with a small percentage cost increase, we will be raising our prices soon too.

We are soon expecting new inventory of our leading sales product, The Lockwood 7444 Keyed Pocket Door Lock and Lockwood are another company owned by the Assa-Abloy umbrella of companies (like the first three in the lists above). As warned in previous articles herein, we will be increasing the cost of this product too. We expect the new inventory to arrive by next Friday, February 16, 2018 and expect to raise the cost of the product by about 11%. And UPS, Fedex and USPS have all raised their shipping charges recently too. We will also be required to increase shipping and handling too.

And because the entire market is experiencing price increases, we expect (like many other service providers) to increase our labor fees too. We consider ourselves far from greedy and only pass on minimal increases to our customers.

We offer a 90 day warranty on all our labor offerings. We maintain manufacturers warranty of products purchased from us. Bearing in mind that if you choose to purchase your product NOT from the service provider, often the service provider cannot offer product warranty terms. This is important to remember when purchasing from online vendors.

Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.