December 10, 2018
Dear Top Knobs / Atlas Homewares customer,
The US/China trade dispute is keeping us on our toes. Today, we comment on the very good news that the two countries have agreed to negotiate, without further escalation of tariffs, for 90 days.
We have just mailed to you our 2019 catalogs and price lists for Top Knobs and Atlas Homewares. This note may or may not beat those materials to you. We planned 2019 prices based on the US government’s previous announcement that tariffs on certain goods were moving from 10% to 25% on January 1, 2019.
The immediate good news: the prices on certain products in our 2019 price lists are now too high. We are reducing the increases to reflect the impact of only the 10% tariff, not the 25% tariff. The products affected are:
- Top Knobs bath hardware
- Atlas Homewares bath hardware
It is critical that you have access to our adjusted prices ASAP. We have posted those in PDF form at the following websites:
You will find these prices lower than what is in the printed price lists. We suggest that you print the adjusted prices and clip them to the price lists that are arriving any day.
2019 has the potential to be somewhat chaotic if tariffs change during the year. We very much hope that the tariffs are not raised and are not extended to other products. In fact, we hope that they go away altogether. If there are further changes, we will respond accordingly, reducing prices or passing some of the costs along.
As we said in our annual note to you, we pledge that we’ll be transparent. We’ll also be fair – we do not intend to make money on the tariffs. We will instead absorb some of the increased costs and pass any reductions on to you.
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