“It’s more or less impossible to comment on the state of our industry without raising the issue of cotton prices.
“We’ve seen cotton values more than double in less than six months, with the price of cotton breaking through $2 a pound for the first time in March. Not a bad return when you consider that a pound of cotton was changing hands on the same exchange for 75 cents as little as six months ago [The Guardian; 17.02.11].
“The reasons for the hikes are well known. A heady combination of increased demand from China, poor global weather conditions, such as the flooding in Pakistan, and speculative buying on international commodity exchanges.
“But with oil and fuel prices on top, alarm bells rang throughout global governments due to the real threat these commodities pose to fueling inflation.
“How has this impacted on us? The acute awareness that people are also being hit by rises in petrol, heating and food prices focuses corporate and business attention back to budgets.
“And we all know what that means. Promo-merchandise if often lumped into the ‘disposable’ category, rather than being seen for what it is; a value for money, high return advertising and marketing tool as we proved in last month’s blog.
“But there is some good news! We have reacted early, substantially increasing our stocks of cotton products to over half a million in stock, in an effort to steady the price for our customers, whilst maintaining high stock levels for that special promotion.
“And that’s not all. Many pundits claim that the surge in cotton prices is expected to entice more farmers into devoting acreage to cotton plantations. The National Cotton Council estimates an increase of 14% in all-cotton plantings in 2011, to 12.5 million acres. As a result, cotton prices may ease later in the year as the harvest comes through, however, speculative bidders may drive the price of cotton even higher in the short term.
“So it’s not all the doom and gloom; 2011 is shaping up to be a strong year for our industry. There are success stories out there, with many of our distributors telling us that they are having record enquiry levels and achieving ambitious targets.
“I don’t think we will be out of the woods, economically speaking, for many years to come. The UK’s monumental economic implode is going to take a good few years to clear up irrespective of what colour uniform the cleaners ware!
“We just need to do as we always do as an industry; remain resilient and determined and work hard to keep things fresh, exciting and moving forward.”
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