Paper merchant Spicers is rolling out a round of price increases for its commercial print paper products – its second price hike in less than four months. The announcement follows a similar move last week by supplier Australian Paper.
In a press release, Spicers says the new pricing on brands such as Precision Laser, Pacesetter Laser Recycled, Core Boxboard and Teslin will become effective as of Monday 24th July 2017.
The company has announced the price increases will be in the vicinity of 3-5%.
As our highly competitive industry continues to be adversely affected through rising input costs, Spicers will be announcing a forthcoming increase across specific products within their Commercial Print Portfolio.
Manufacturers worldwide, especially out of Europe and Asia, have raised their prices on papers and boards purchased by Spicers. At the same time, the announcement from local supplier Australian Paper regarding rises of between 3-5%, has also contributed to the forthcoming increase.
“It is of upmost importance to Spicers that we minimize increases in costs from our suppliers,” says David Martin, CEO of Spicers. “We have been tightly managing the costs directly under our control, yet we recognize that the tight margin position of the industry means our ability to absorb supplier increases is limited.”
As the paper industry continues to be affected through rising input costs, Spicers says it will continue 'to try and absorb as much of these costs as possible to minimize the effect on customers and end-users.'
Australian Paper recently increased its prices on selected uncoated woodfree copy and printing papers by three to five percent.
Spicers also increased its prices on April 10 this year, blaming rising international mill prices, and other paper merchants have announced similar increases.
Dale O’Neill, sales director at Direct Paper, said earlier: “We’ve been increasing prices on line items out of necessity since December – we’ve had to move our prices up as pressure’s increased on each segment.”
Pulp & paper industry publication IndustryEdge said in March that paper price rises were overdue and should be welcomed by those seeking improved value across the supply chain.
Printers have long argued they cannot afford paper price increases. However, there is a longer history of printers under-cutting one another on price alone, fermenting the continuous suspicion among paper suppliers that they have, over a long period of time, largely funded the printer’s ‘price war’. The objective data indicates that to a very large extent, paper suppliers have carried the load.