What is PaladinID doing to be prepared once the supply chain corrects itself and things return to a more normal environment?

DONE: For the past two years, PaladinID has been on a mission to add capacity, both from a supplier and a personnel standpoint.  We have positioned ourselves to have redundancy in our manufacturing processes.  Meaning, having multiple plants in different locations around the country to produce our labels.  If weather or label shortages occur in…

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How hard is it for you to get raw materials?

DONE: Very hard. I have been in the printing business for 40 years. Outside of a short time in the early 1980’s when paper for stock computer forms had a significant shortage and allocations occurred, I have never seen anything like the situation we are in right now. It is generational.  Almost every one of…

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If material is hard to come by and you can’t get everything you need to support your customers, how are you prioritizing your business decisions?

Done: Great question. We have made some tough decisions. We are focused on taking care of our existing customer base, which has supported us for many years. We are turning down opportunities from prospects as we feel a fiduciary responsibility to our current customers. I can’t tell you how many companies have reached out to…

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Are you trying hard enough?

DONE:Well, if you mean are we speaking with every raw material supplier we know, both domestically and internationally, the answer is yes. Material sourcing and acquisition has become a full-time activity for our strategic sourcing and executive teams.  The good news is that we enjoy very solid relationships with our suppliers and spread our volume…

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I have been told that pricing may not be able to be held for blanket orders and purchase orders where it may take months to get material. Why?

DONE: Again, we have a perfect storm. Here is what is happening to all label converters right now. We order material for jobs; we won’t see it for many weeks. In the meantime, raw material companies announce a price increase, which takes effect on all shipments within the next month.  That means our costs for…

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What worries you the most?

My biggest fear is that label materials become scarce or not available.  Second, that prices continue to rise causing end users get creative, finding other options to labels. Let’s face it, we all need to run our businesses and companies will pivot away from problem areas, finding new ways to mark products, identify inventory, track…

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What is the latest on the availability of raw materials for labels? It seems like things have not gotten any better for months now.

DONE: You are absolutely correct; we saw material supplies starting to tighten up over a year and a half ago. Most raw material suppliers predicted things would improve in early 2021. Well, that certainly didn’t happen.  Throughout 2021, raw material supply availability continued to get worse. Most of our suppliers responded by enacting allocations on…

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