Atlanta, Georgia – Home Bed Company Standard Fiber’s Atlanta Warehouse, filled and sealed for a nice night sleep, is one of the many things that give their CEOs, Chad Altbier, Bad Dreams.
“The planning is practically impossible,” Ultbier told CBS News. “Perhaps the most challenging time of my career.”
The Nevada-based standard fiber is the middleman among the sheets, towels and curtain sugar producers-and American buyers such as Walmart and Target.
“We are already customers who are reducing the amount of their orders because they are concerned about high value points, and a consumer is buying less and responding,” the Altbier said.
When tariff on US China Triple reached numerals Earlier this year, retailers canceled their orders. Now, With tariff at 30%Some of those retail vendors want goods to be sent immediately from China. This temporary 90-day deal reached in mid-May, ready to run through the middle-August. In June, the two countries announced that they had reached one Temporary agreement On the more permanent trade deal, although it is not yet finalized.
“You can’t walk in a walmart or a goal or a costco or a house item and there is nothing to sell,” the Altbier said. “The question is actually how much product is going to be the product and at what price point.”
A Recent report The Institute for Supply Management suggests that manufacturers are still seeing a decline in customers’ orders. The report found that the total import activity in the US fell to 39.9% in May. Economic uncertainty for many defects tariffs and drops.
Even with two manufacturing sites in the US, Altbeier says that it is still not possible to take home textile production completely out of Asia.
“We don’t have a infrastructure,” said Altbeier. “We do not have a workforce. We do not have experience. We do not have raw materials here.”
Standard fiber has shifted some production from China to other Asian countries, but Altbier says that there will still be an increase in large prices. It is not easy to be a middleman.
Altbeier said revenue loss from tariffs forced standard fiber to cut around 45 of its 250 workers.
“The one who keeps me at night does not know,” said Altbier. “And then not being able to control these unprecedented, you know, tariff conditions, which are clearly, wreaking havoc on the world, not only America, and not only our industry.”
