There’s a lot of noise in the news these days about increasing prices.  Whilst this is mainly focused on consumer items and household necessities it’s also true of many other markets especially the safety and workwear industry. 

Quite often our customers ask us why these increases are necessary.  There are number of factors which influence this: 

• Material cost increases – the costs of the materials used in our products are constantly increasing.  This has to do with improving technologies and manufacturing methods as well as inflation. 
• Labour shortages – The COVID-19 pandemic has created severe labour shortages in everybody’s supply chains throughout the last 2 years.  The cost of covering these shortages and training new staff is reflected in product costs passed directly to distributors. 
• Transport costs – Along with the staff shortages has come increased logistical complexity.  This is a combination of a shortage of drivers and the impact of Brexit on importing goods.  Manufacturers are also seeing significant costs from needing to re-certify products under the UKCA scheme. 

• Demand vs Supply – A general increase in awareness of different safety products (driven by factors like the COVID-19 pandemic or increased safety campaigning and HSE inspections) leads to increases in demand (these could be gradual or dramatic).  This increase will often lead to increased strain on the supply of goods which then allows manufacturers to demand higher costs.  Quite often distributors are powerless to combat this in a classic “middle-man” situation. 
• Stock availability – We've discussed in another blog the current strains on availability and stocks.  A shortage will lead to price increases in a similar way to the shift in demand and supply described above. 

At PK Safety we’re aware of the importance that price and budget play in the complete protective solution for recycling, waste and other public service organisations. 

That’s one of the reasons why we’ve created our stock guarantee.  It’s a useful way to create catalogues of products that we can assure stock availability and price brackets on.  Get in touch with someone on our sales team to have a chat about how we can set this up for you.