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5 Business Costs of Norovirus Outbreaks

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To Our Halawa Ohana & Friends

We take a great deal of pride in providing the very best service at the most competitive prices. Recently, many of our manufacturers have announced price increases that cover the broadest range of products. These changes are being felt by all sellers of office products and furniture.  As a result, we must suspend our Halawa Neighbor Discount effective Monday, October 1, 2018. Over the past year, our industry has experienced pricing pressures for a variety of reasons that include: • The Trump administration tariffs have negatively impacted pricing across many of our brands forcing manufacturers and vendors to increase their pricing to distributors. • Increased fuel and energy prices have added to the cost of transporting goods. • Plastics used for many desk accessories, sheet protectors and binders have increased due to higher energy cost and tariffs. • Steel prices have increased due to retaliatory tariffs. • Paper pulp has seen multiple increases. This affects many products including

Why is Paper so Expensive & Continuing to Increase? What Can I Do?

The first thing someone might tell you if they hear you complain about paper prices is to go paperless. Un fortunately, that isn’t the answer for everyone, especially in the business world.  So, why is paper so expensive and what can you do to mitigate the costs? What is causing pricing issues? Corrugate With the rise of ecommerce, corrugate is more in demand (aka those boxes your online order comes in). Companies are switching their paper making focus to corrugate, which means less supply of regular old paper. Fewer Paper Mills ​Previous reduction in demand = elimination of many papers AND mill consolidations. Fewer mills = rising paper pulp costs. According to Strategic Sourceror, the price of wood pulp is forecasted to increase at an annualized rate of 5.1% through 2019. Another source, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the Producer Price Index for pulp, paper and allied products has risen from 177.2 to 216.9 in the past year and is NOT expected