The US Administration has imposed tariffs effective March 23, 2018 on steel and aluminium products sourced from outside the US. These tariffs also have the knock-on effect of increasing costs from domestically sourced aluminium and steel products as a majority of US companies processing these materials source the raw or partially processed input materials from outside the US. We also have seen a general but fairly gradual rise of these input costs, particularly aluminium, for over a year now, with a double digit increase in our underlying costs.
Our company prides itself on providing stability in pricing and transparency of direction but these latest cost increases were too sudden and too large for us to absorb, as we have done in the past. Therefore, we will increase the selling price of our aluminium products (mostly tube, fascia and cassette) by 10% and our stamped and formed steel products (mostly brackets) by 12.5% for all shipments effective April 1, 2018.
In addition, for shipments between today and April 1, we will use our discretion to equitably allocate existing inventory that is capable of shipment before April 1 as many of our customers have accelerated their ordering of these product types and we feel an obligation to support all our customers as fairly as possible.
Official Customer Letter