JESCO CEO Richard Kurtz recently sent the letter below to employees and customers regarding recent price increases due to tariffs:
In recent weeks, many letters announcing price increases for lighting fixtures have been sent by other manufacturers.
JESCO wants to assure you that we are working hard with our factories to share and absorb as much of the cost of tariffs as we can bear instead of passing the added cost to our valued customers.
JESCO intends to hold our current pricing despite the 10% U.S. tariff that recently went into effect, and even after the second wave of 25% tariff, scheduled to be imposed late December by the U.S. Trade Administration against Chinese imports.
Our current price list remains valid. You will not be receiving a price increase from us in the coming weeks. We will hold pricing through the end of the first quarter of 2019. Depending on our inventory levels, we will revisit product pricing at that time. We hope that these tariffs will be rescinded and no new tariffs will be added. We have stood behind the American Lighting Association’s efforts to petition the Administration to exclude many of the Chinese lighting components, etc.
We do not believe in using these new tariffs as a means to greatly increase our prices in a lighting market where pricing has continued to be more competitive year after year. Such rapid price increases, as imposed by other manufacturers taking advantage of the market with in-stock product brought in before the tariffs, are unfair to our specifying customers with longer timeline projects.
We make the promise that JESCO will honor the quoted prices for all orders released by the end of the first quarter of 2019, providing your clients the peace of mind, not just on the quality of our products and our service, but no surprises on pricing.
Richard Kurtz
President & CEO
JESCO LIGHTING GROUP