This is a “good news / bad news” story.
Oh yes, we all know that the Canadian textile screen printing industry needs all the help that it can get right now but, unfortunately, some manufacturers have indicated that they still have to put up their prices. Apparently there have been raw material price increases that have to be passed on. The exception is Ulano who have chosen to not pass on an increase – see the next story.
Wilflex (still the manufacturer of the best screen printing ink in the world) has indicated in a letter to its distributors that 2009 was a tough year. They say that as a result of managing costs through their “Lean Six Sigma” initiative they don’t have to increase the prices of their newer environmental range of inks but they do have to increase the prices of their Classic Inks by about 5%. That is the bad news part of this story.
The good news part of this story is that Screenflex is going to absorb the price increase and NOT PASS IT ON to our Canadian Wilflex customers. In addition to the continuing strong support from our customers, there are two reasons that we can do this. After our Western Canadian sale we undertook a reorganization and belt-tightening that resulted in some cost savings, and the stronger Canadian dollar has helped a bit as well.
Our dollar looks good for now and we will continue to manage our costs carefully even as we increase our sales base. Unless anything significant changes, we should be able to hold the prices down for some time yet.
If you have any comments about this story specifically, prices in general, or anything else for that matter, I invite you to drop me an email at michael.best@screenflex.ca or call 1 800 661 7766 and let’s chat.