Many business owners already dealing with lost revenue due to the virus pandemic are now confronted by another challenge: sharply higher costs spurred by inflation. The Labor Department said wholesale prices rose a record 9.7% in December from a year ago.
“There’s a tremendous amount of not just risk — risk you can calculate — but uncertainty. We just don’t know what’s going to happen.” said Ray Keating, chief economist with the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council. “Consumer demand is there, but there are just enormous supply chain constraints. All of this is feeding into price increases.”
For her FoMu shops, the cost of business overall rose about 15% in 2021 compared with 2020. She has raised prices about 10% but taken other measures, too: shifting to more delivery and cutting flavors like avocado ice cream, which became too expensive to make as avocado prices rose. “Most of these come with less than a two-week notice,” she said. “We cannot guarantee any quotes that go out and have had to adjust our contract as well as all of our language on our proposals to reflect these variable conditions.”
Some online vendors are eliminating free shipping to combat costs. Gianluca Boncompagni, owner of e-commerce site Off Road Tents, which sells off-road and overlanding equipment, saw logistics costs quadruple. In October 2020, he paid $6,300 for a 40-foot container coming from China. By October 2021, he was paying $26,000 for the same sized container.
Some businesses are using channels they developed during the pandemic to communicate with customers about why prices are increasing, in the hopes they’ll be patient.
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