Around early November, our handle-leather guy called the boss. We've been buying from him since 2014 — Mr. Zhao, runs a small tannery up in Hebei, drives down maybe twice a year to drink tea and complain about his sons not wanting to take over.
Anyway. He said, "Brother Wang, I have to raise it 12%. Don't be angry."
The reason was the wet-blue hides from Brazil got more expensive (yes, Brazil — there's a real loop here, the leather comes from Brazil, gets tanned in China, comes back as paddle handles, goes back to Brazil on a finished racket. Globalization is funny.). Tannery chemicals also up. And his electric bill, which he mentioned twice.
So we had three options:
One — accept the 12% and pass it through to customers. Risky because some of our long-term buyers are price sensitive and we already raised prices in early 2024 on the wood side.
Two — switch suppliers. There's a tannery in Henan I had quoted previously. About 8% cheaper than even the old price. But the hide thickness consistency on their samples was not as good. I've learned, slowly, that "8% cheaper, slightly worse" is almost never actually 8% cheaper once you factor in the rejection and rework.
Three — change what we offer. Move the budget line to PU leather (synthetic), keep the cowhide only on mid and high tier. PU is fine — most casual beach players probably can't tell. The grip feel is slightly different but durable.
We went with option three. The hardest part was telling the eight or so customers who specifically buy our cheapest paddle with cowhide handles. Most were OK once we explained, two pushed back, one switched to a competitor (we think — they stopped ordering). For new buyers we just lead with the PU on the budget line and they don't know any different.
Mr. Zhao still drives down twice a year. He brought salted duck eggs last visit. We bought slightly less leather than before but he was OK with that, said his other paddle customer in Wenzhou was buying more.
Business goes on.
