Pete-MK(Elite Donator) posted this on Wednesday, 26th May 2021, 07:23
As someone who works with the building industry, it was only a matter of time before things started to get a bit rough. Long story short, goods are becoming very hard to come by, with seemingly obvious staples like cement & timber becoming the proverbial rocking-horse doo-doo.
Much of this is down to the construction industry firing up again after the lockdown, and demand outstripping supply by an order of magnitude. Climate change also plays a part as it's been too warm for trees and too cold for plastic(?)
But another factor is the meteoric rise in costs of goods. I've personally seen the price of timber more than double in the last year, decking is due to go up another 15% next month, with 5-10% rises across the board for almost everything else. One of the pertinent reasons for this is the rise in shipping costs. Last year it was $1,500 to get a 40-foot container to Europe from Asia, now it's closer to $8500.
Then there's Brexit. I have a personal saying - 'there's a reason builders aren't accountants'. The majority of our customers voted to leave, citing all the wrong reasons and flat-out lies for doing do. We even had one customer aggressively demand we all voted to leave or he would never shop with us again. I personally would have been glad to see the back of him but he's still hanging around, complaining about his prices which are now going up as a direct result of his decision, as most of our softwood comes from Scandanavia, and import charges are also skyrocketing.
Hopefully that will level off soon, but the stock price rises will still go up, and in the nearly 20 years I've been working here, I've never known them to come back down again at a similar rate.
