a hand holding a sketch of money and a percent sign

Contributed by AFFLINK

We are hearing more about inflation and prices going up on an entire host of things, from houses to cottage cheese. If so, the professional cleaning industry will not be immune.  

In fact, according to Gretchen Friedrich with AFFLINK, a distributor-membership organization representing 350 distributors throughout the country, "we are already starting to see the costs of some products used in professional cleaning going up."

The key reason for this is the cost of resin.

"Resin, used to make plastic, is in short supply around the world," says Friedrich. "It's now a case of supply and demand. Short supply and high demand create higher prices."

The shortage in resin is due, in part, to the February freeze earlier this year in Texas.

This outage, according to the Wall Street Journal, brought the world's largest petrochemical complex to a standstill.

At the same time, as the U.S. economy bounces back, there is greater demand for products made from resin. According to Friedrich, because of all these scenarios, the price of the following products used in professional cleaning may go up:

- Trash liners and trash cans.

- One- and five-gallon containers used to package cleaning solutions.

- Plastic spray bottles.

- Cleaning equipment encased in plastic.

"Polyethylene, polypropylene, and other resin-based compounds are used as casing on lots of cleaning equipment. This means these machines may go up in price," Friedrich goes on to explain.

 So, how can cleaning professionals deal with these cost increases? Friedrich suggests they:

- Work with distributors that know and understand the company. Often, they can suggest ways to cut costs.

- Have one employee in charge of purchasing. Buying is all about relationships. Strong relationships with suppliers usually pay off.

- Purchase in bulk.

- Hold on. While many price increases are here to stay, some may come down a bit in the next few months.