Shop at Pre-Inflations Prices—for now

It’s no secret that prices are expected to go up again in the near future. There are three main reasons for this:

• Tariffs—essentially a tax on imports—will increase costs. This will not only affect imported goods, but also things made with imported parts, or with imported tools.
• Exchange rates: The value of the U.S. dollar has been high in recent years, but it has already fallen almost 10% since the new regime took over. This will make imports more expensive.
• Uncertainty: A lack of predictability makes it difficult to streamline processes. For example, companies have stocked up with products, in case tariffs are implemented. In addition to the costs of financing and warehousing those excess purchases, this has caused shipping bottlenecks and thus increased shipping costs—affecting everybody.

Here at Rene Herse Cycles, prices for tires and components have not gone up in years. In fact, the prices of SON generator hubs and lights from Germany even went down, because of the favorable exchange rate.

How did we buck inflation? When cycling was booming during Covid, many companies increased their prices. We did not—we’ve never priced our products based on ‘what the market will bear,’ but on what they cost to make. For imported bike parts, the increasing value of the U.S. dollar offset the higher prices that we paid our suppliers. In other words, our prices in Yen, Euro and other currencies went up, but thanks to the exchange rate, our cost in dollars remained roughly the same. We also streamlined our operations to reduce costs and improve service. This made up for inflation as it affected our expenses here in the U.S. Cost increases like our employees’ wages—it’s important to us that everybody on our team makes a good living—rent, shipping, etc., have not been passed on to our customers.

When inflation was returning to normal levels last year, we thought we had weathered the storm. Our prices had stayed low when others raised theirs. However, this also means that others padded their pricing, while we have no room to absorb further cost increases.

Those cost increases are rapidly cascading into view now. Shipping has become more expensive as everybody is rushing to fill their warehouses. The dollar is rapidly losing value. Tariffs have already complicated custom’s clearance processes, adding costs that few people see. Suppliers are warning us that prices of raw materials are going up significantly. All these things are affecting our costs in the same direction—upward. Over the next weeks and months, we’ll need to take a careful look at our prices. As always, we’ll keep price increases to a minimum.

The good news is that you can still buy Rene Herse products at pre-inflation prices—for now. In fact, most Rene Herse products are still available at the same prices you would have paid before the pandemic.