Sticker Shock

I got a new leather, hardware, and tool supply catalog yesterday, from the company I buy most of my leather from. I was expecting price increases.

What I found was price INCREASES for leather. My eyes glazed over, my brain just kinda gibbered, and I refused to think about it any more.

Today I compared the new prices to the 2011 catalog, and what I have for various types of leather in my cost computation spreadsheet.

The numbers still aren't pretty - prices for a small sample of the leather and hardware I use most shows increases mostly in the 5%-15% range over last year's catalog. But the reason the most recent leather prices were so shocking is that I haven't bought more expensive leather in a couple-three years, and I'd been ignoring the price increases over what I have on hand that the 2011 catalog reflected. In short, for the things I looked at the effective price increases for me range from 7% to 44%, with the two kinds of leather I use for belts going up in the neighborhood of 25% since I last re-supplied. Ouchie.

I'm unlikely to do it this week, but in the very near future I'm going to have to crunch numbers and figure out where I'm going to raise prices and how much. This will only be my second price increase in almost 15 years in business, so it really isn't an unreasonable step to take. Part of the decision-making will be if I'm going to re-price all my existing pouches, or start with pouches made after a trigger date.

Belts are easier - unlike pouches, I don't tag belts, I just have a price list. Then again, I have enough different belt styles now that maybe I should go to tagging belts.

Decisions, decisions.