The Price of Cotton... Yikes.

2011-02-10T15:11:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, I have to post our first blog entry addressing what a lot of my fellow garment decorators are having to deal with... the rising cost of cotton, which of course leads to the rising price of the garments we decorate.

I was telling one of our mill reps today that I remember purchasing blank white 100% cotton t-shirts for under a buck just a few years ago. This morning that price has just about tripled to almost three of those bucks for colors. And, we're probably looking at another increase sometime around June (which is typically when mills reprice) for the rest of the calendar year.

Weather issues in China and Pakistan (two of the world's leading cotton producers) destroyed thousands of acres of cotton leading to a higher than normal spoilage rate. Thus, cotton prices are up over 50% in the last year. Add to that, reports have China expecting to have another increase of up to 30% this year.

So what's a company to do when almost all of their products contain this "golden thread?" Well, you could do what John Anton of Anton Sports in Arizona did. When Mr. Anton saw the price of cotton shooting up, and decided to act. He borrowed $300,000 through his home-equity line of credit and bought more than a year's supply. Mr. Anton typically has about 30 cases of shirts on hand at one time, but now has more than 2,500.

But what about us small cats without the 300K? Ted Pfeifer of RocketPromo, Inc. and pdxtees.com, of Portland, Oregon, says: "We will hold steady as long as we can without passing on the increases to our customers in hopes that the price will stabilize, but it's more than just cotton prices, we're also seeing increases in shipping and courier services due to fuel surcharges." Mr. Pfeifer goes on to say; "Increases in the related products we use like ink, emulsion and the lot, have also added to our net costs."

My closing thought would be I think Ultimately shops will start offering more blends or lighter weight garments to help their customers save. At the time of this post, a 5.4-ounce white tee was almost .20 less than it's 6.1-ounce big brother which on larger jobs can mean one free shirt for every 10 or so printing the lower weight garment. Not to mention the the .70 weight saving on shipping...

Until the next pass...