How to Keep Your Costs Low Until Final Decision
Until this is resolved, the prices of cabinets continue to rise and this is no good news for anyone. To keep their costs low, cabinet manufacturers and retailers can compensate for this increase in cabinet prices by improving their processes and streamlining their proposal, pricing, and ordering system. Simplifying and innovating these processes with a system that has a proven track of success allows both cabinet manufacturers and retailers to save on labor while increasing profits. KitchenDEV Cabinets Pricing & Ordering software is a comprehensive and innovative solution for both cabinet manufacturers and retailers that allows them to strategize, innovate, and stay ahead of their competition regardless of the outside factors that they cannot influence. It puts them in the driving seat of their proposal, pricing, and ordering processes, as well as customers, catalog, and communication management. Learn more on how to save on labor and minimize the effect of the trade war with China on your cabinet business. Explore the possibilities you get with our Cabinets Pricing & Ordering software.
Awaiting Decision on Imports of Cabinets and Vanities Made in China
American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance (AKCA), a coalition of cabinet manufacturers, filed on March 6 an unfair-trade petition asking for the imposition of antidumping and countervailing duties on imports of Chinese-made cabinets and vanities. The unfair-trade case has created a strong divide between industry alliances that have lined up on opposite sides of the issue.
On March 6, 2019, the American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance filed antidumping and countervailing duty petition with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission against imports of wooden cabinets and vanities from China. The Alliance is made up of U.S. wooden cabinets and vanities manufacturers: ACProducts, Inc., American Woodmark Corporation, Bellmont Cabinet Co., Bertch Cabinet Manufacturing, The Corsi Group, Crystal Cabinet Works, Inc., Dura Supreme Cabinetry, Jim Bishop Cabinets, Inc., Kitchen Kompact, Inc., Koch & Co., Inc., Kountry Wood Products, LLC, Lanz Cabinets Incorporated, Leedo Cabinetry, Marsh Furniture Company, Master WoodCraft Cabinetry LLC, MasterBrand Cabinets, Inc., Nation’s Cabinetry, Showplace Wood Products, Inc., Smart Cabinetry, Tru Cabinetry, Wellborn Cabinet, Inc., Wellborn Forest Products, Inc., Woodland Cabinetry, Inc., Woodmont Cabinetry, W. W. Wood Products, Inc. and another two undisclosed companies.
According to their mutual statement, wooden cabinets and vanities imported from China are being sold at less than fair value in the United States and are subsidized, causing material injury and threatening further material injury to the domestic industry if trade remedy duties are not imposed. The petitioners allege that the Government of China is providing countervailable subsidies to wooden cabinets and vanities manufacturers in China, and argue that such imports are materially injuring to the U.S. wooden cabinets and vanities industry.
According to the American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance, kitchen cabinets and vanities made in China currently make more than one-third of the $9.5 billion U.S. cabinet market. In 2018, the total U.S. import of wooden cabinets from China was about $4 billion. They state that the Chinese cabinet and vanity manufacturers unfairly benefit from government subsidies and other economic programs. They see the import from China as a real and existential threat to the U.S. cabinet manufacturers and U.S. cabinet trade.
However, a recently formed alliance of distributors, dealers, contractors, installers, and importers of ready-to-assemble (RTA) cabinets — American Coalition of Cabinet Distributors (ACCD) disputes these charges. They state that imposition of the duties could effectively erase the RTA market segment from the U.S. marketplace “by taking advantage of anti-China trade sentiment”. This alliance was formed in May to fight the antidumping and countervailing duty petitions. According to the American Coalition of Cabinet Distributors, the RTA sector makes up only a small segment of the U.S. cabinet market and represents only a portion that “does nothing to impede the growth of the larger U.S. kitchen cabinet industry.”