Tariffs, Supply Chain, Inventory, Oh My!
Letter from Chief of Operations Jimmy Banish:
Hey TBF Family!
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Jimmy and I’m the COO of The Bear Factory. I’m writing this blog post in an effort to keep you informed as we round out 2018 and move into the next year. As most of you may know and have inquired about, the trade discrepancies with China are definitely something worth paying attention to as our factories are located there. Many of you have asked, “How will this impact me?”, “Will prices increase?”, “What are you (TBF) going to do about it?”.
These are all very valid questions and we are doing our best to remain as transparent as possible with you as the current landscape continues to unfold. With that said, we are continuing with a business-as-usual mentality because that is exactly what this is. We have worked through issues like this for almost two decades without customers even knowing about it. The biggest difference at the moment is the amount of attention and media that is spotlighting this particular world issue.
As I can imagine, you are already beginning to see that we are running out of stock on some items due to US Customs backups, fabric delays in our factory, unusual weather on the docks late into the summer, and the simple fact that we’ve increased our customer base by more than 20% this year! We are doing everything we can to work through these adversities to better support you. To alleviate some of these inventory pressures, we are going to be launching an inventory page that highlights Stock Items along with estimated arrival times of when they will be back in stock. (Stay tuned for that webpage launch)
Additionally, I will be following up with more posts regarding the China-US Tariff agenda and potential price increases, should there be any. We will be making announcements on these topics as soon as we have solid information to share to give you the comfort and confidence you need to be successful.
We have always been a very open company with our customers and my goal in establishing the Teddy Time Blog is to further enrich that experience to your benefit. The Bear Factory Team is extremely excited about the current growth and direction we are headed in so please let us know if there is anything else we can help support you with.
Thank you again for choosing The Bear Factory and Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!
