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Ideal Industries has increased prices on their full line of cable pulling lubricants. They actually took a 2.0% increase last September in addition to their 2.0% increase in January of 2011. Now they've increased prices again, up 5.1%, effective 2/1/2012. That's 3 increases in 13 months: 2% + 2% + 5%. Polywater lubes rose less (2% + 3%) during the same period. This is a continuing trend. Most of our packages are now at historically low prices in comparison to Ideal's. Why is that? We are, after all, in an inflationary economy. The key is in our price increase notice issued last November: "... Polywater continues to invest heavily in production automation, and our increased volume and efficiency allowed us to absorb the large mid-year oil price spike ..." We believe Ideal, on the other hand, is suffering from lower unit sales and production efficiencies, and is thus raising prices to offset lost profits. The combination of the slow economy, increased regulatory compliance and environmental scrutiny for chemical manufacturers, and your relentless onslaught have them under pressure. Ideal is also eliminating packages. The 1/2-gallon bag catalog numbers (the cross to our Front End Pack bags, i.e., J-55 and G-55) have disappeared from their price list. Their quart bags may disappear soon too. They still exist for now (Aqua-Gel II and Velocity only), but at ridiculously high prices. For example, they sell a quart bottle for $8.00 or a quart bag for $14.32, almost double the Polywater price. All of this indicates that Ideal has conceded the bag business to Polywater. Most other competitors don't carry any lube bags. This can be good news for large bag quotes. Bottom line: we're winning. Not the Charlie Sheen kind; the real stuff. Keep it up. |
