Why Has Shipping Gone Up?

July 02, 2021American Tent Life

If you’re a person who has made any purchase that has required shipping lately, it’s likely you experienced a bit of sticker shock when it came time to check out. Shipping! What happened? Long story short: Everything costs more. Fuel, labor, materials. Supply chain issues caused havoc that will resonate for at least the rest of 2021. If you want to get into it further, read this article. Fair warning- it may bum you out. Additionally, as a small business, American Tent and so many of our colleagues do not have the leverage to influence shipping prices. Global behemoths like Wal-Mart and Nike have some say over what they are willing to pay for shipping, but not us. Unfortunately, we are stuck where the market has placed us: squarely in higher shipping fees.

Before you get too depressed and decide to go full Ever Given, have faith. A rising tide lifts all ships and likewise, it’s estimated that prices everywhere will rise. The market has responded with higher wages and more fair labor prices which is something American Tent has always been in support of. When the cost of shipping is influenced by an LTL driver being paid better, we can get on board with that.

Bottom line: these shipping prices are here for the foreseeable future. American Tent is doing everything we can to keep our cost of goods low to compensate for the rise in prices. Fortunately for us, most of our materials for our Green Bay manufacturing facility are coming in from the United States. We don’t need to rely on slow boats from overseas, just hardworking makers and drivers coming in from Ohio and other not-so-exotic locales.

We’re here for you with any other questions you might have and we promise we are doing our best to keep costs down for our valued customers.