Hi all,
Holy bat poop, did you get that email, too.
Doubling the price! Now that is what I call WOW factor!
news from Lewis Polk said:
June 18, 2007 Greetings!Who would have thought that copper would be the new gold…in value anyway.
I don’t know how to write this letter without the marketplace thinking we’re profiteering on the loss of a major competitor in the track business, but the truth is that copper prices have tripled in the past few years (Please see the copper pricing chart at the end of this letter). Copper is a world commodity and our contract pricing ran out.
Copper is 70% of the raw commodity that goes into our brass track and we can’t make up the differences in volume. The hard fact is that we are going to double the price of our track immediately or not be able to deliver track. This is the result of hard bargaining in light of the more than tripling of the commodity involved.
It’s inexcusable that we didn’t raise prices progressively and have to do a mid-season price change that we have never done in our past. It’s that or shut down our track deliveries totally. I realize the shock to the marketplace, but we have no choice if we wish to continue as a supplier of track. We had hoped that copper pricing would return to reality, but today’s world leaves commodity pricing irrational. If the commodity price of copper changes we will reflect the price changes on a quarterly basis in the future. Stainless steel pricing has been in the same mode and the price is doubling as well.
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That was a bit of a shocker early this morning and it’s Monday, too!