Our dearest clients, partners, and friends, 2021 has not been the year that many of us expected it to be. While product and embellishment demands have returned stronger than ever, the fallout from the pandemic continues to wreak havoc on business as usual. Between limits on inventory and our supply chain, plus challenges with hiring and staff shortages, it has been difficult to provide you with the level of customer service you are probably familiar with. If you have experienced this with us, I am truly sorry. Our priority this year has been to do everything possible to fill your orders and find alternatives with available stock. We have absorbed shipping fees whenever possible and paid astronomical air shipping rates to meet deadlines. Meanwhile the price of our goods, raw material, labor and transportation have increased from all of our vendors. Given all of this, the overall costs of selling our products and providing our services have gone up significantly this year. As a result, January 1st, 2022 will be the official rollout of necessary price increases. Many of our products already have price increases reflected in-store. Our in-house services such as embroidery, screen printing and alterations will see the 2nd price increase in our 35+ year history. Unfortunately, many of you have already received plenty of e-mails similar to this one. Perhaps, this reads like another copy / paste e-mail to acknowledge and delete. I know that price increases are never welcomed, but we will continue to do all we can to limit them as we always have. We will still follow the same discount formatting and policies for our groups and contracts. Our increases are not what we “feel” we should get, they are simply the increases from our vendors that we are passing along.
Positively, it’s exciting to see our clients trying new products, changing up uniforms, and forecasting orders. It feels like a fresh start in the right direction. I am incredibly proud of our United Uniforms / Sew Shore team. They have worked tirelessly to take care of our customers and orders in the worst conditions to date. One of our great team accomplishments is that we have taken the time to build private web portals for many of our clients and we plan to launch even more, by the dozens, in 2022. All of these sites are created in-house and managed by our own staff. We have the singular goal of serving our customers and making a positive difference in our community.
With 2021 behind us I am still cautious, but optimistically looking forward to the New Year. We still have a few surprises in store, with the sole purpose of improving our services and offerings to you. Thank you for your continued patience, understanding, and patronage.
Sincerely,
Jason Marshall
Owner / President
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