To date, our corporate wearables prices have remained pretty constant over the last 18-24 months, despite the rising cost of conducting business. Fuel costs have had the greatest impact on our cost of doing business as they have across all wearables distributors.
In some sectors of our business our suppliers are adding a $5-15 per shipment surcharge. This is in addition to shipping fees. While some distributors can no longer afford to eat these costs, and they are now being forced to raise their prices, we’re still measuring the impact and ROI of various promotions. Increasingly, competitors are being forced to pass along increases as high as 15% to end-users. Fortunately, since we are both manufacturer and distributor, we have a more control than most promotional products companies. However, we are more carefully watching these estimates vs bllling to ensure that they are passed on.
The issue for companies like ours that provide services like embroidery is that we have to pay for shipping multiple times, depending on the brand and volume ordered.
For our own products, we pay to bring product in to the USA. Then we ship to the local embroiderer for those who do not advance order, then back to us for later fulfillment or direct out to the customer. Some brands we sell do not have embroidery on the premises. So there is a cost to send the product to the embroiderer, then to us (small orders are batched), then to the customer.
The smaller promotional products companies are the most likely to be hurt. We’ve already heard from suppliers who have closed huge numbers of reseller accounts because their business volume was low. The cost of fulfilling orders is high so by eliminating small accounts, operational costs can be trimmed.
CEOgolfshop.com is a valued member of the wearables resellers industry. We continue to have manufacturers request we sell their products to our B2B customers. Despite economic issues in the country, our company continues to grow and we will continue to specialize in the executive or luxury brand niche market.