A Message To Our Valued Customers:
Imprint Enterprises would like to share with you some ongoing industry issues that are affecting the label industry. While COVID-19 has driven up demand for labels over the past year, it has also created supply chain issues for raw materials and is affecting the timely delivery of products. Here are some important points:
- Due to increased label demand and longer lead times from suppliers, our lead times have lengthened as well. We have been adding production staff, overtime, equipment, and shifts to accommodate the demand, but our flexibility has been hampered. It may take some time before the supply chain corrects itself. In the meantime, it is imperative you work with your sales team to get your orders in much sooner than normal. Plan for 15 to 20 day lead times on standard custom work. This is not just an Imprint Enterprises issue; it is industry-wide.
- All of our raw material providers continue to report record-high backlogs. This, along with labor shortages, has doubled lead times for standard Thermal Transfer and Direct Thermal label stocks while tripling lead times for many specialty materials.
- Costs for corrugated cartons, stretch and shrink films, plastic bags, and other ancillary products have risen substantially over the past 9 months. Now, we are also starting to see cost increases for raw materials. So far, it has been limited to film stocks, but we believe it is only a matter of time before we see the cost for paper stocks increase as well. Once that happens, we may have no choice but to initiate an across-the-board price increase for all products, both custom and stock.
- Freight costs continue to rise. Between the high demand for distributed products driven by COVID-19 and the ongoing shortage of drivers, we anticipate shipping cost increases will continue into the foreseeable future. Plus, freight reliability has decreased significantly in recent months as well.
While much of the above is COVID-19 driven, we don’t see things getting much better any time soon. It certainly is going to take some time to work through all of the above supply chain issues for material components, and we expect these freight issues will be ongoing.
So with that said, we are asking you to get your orders in early as possible to account for possible delays.
At Imprint Enterprises, we will continue to invest in people, equipment, and system improvements to serve you better. We are working hard to to get your products out the door as quickly as possible.
We are committed to you and your needs. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us any time through our website at imprint-e.com or call us at (855) 745-4464.
