Informal YouTube monologue (Tom Burton) discussing how tariffs may impact wholesale distributors and manufacturers. Includes an anecdote from a senior operations/purchasing executive at a national distribution company who says firms that diversified sourcing and managed inventory well have competitive advantage; notes the near-term importance of Chinese New Year shutdowns and timing of shipments (pre-purchased/on-the-water) in determining exposure to tariffs.
Chapters
Was interesting, you know, as we talk about the tariffs before we leave from that because it's, you know, potentially a big impact on wholesale distributors and manufacturers. But I had a lengthy conversation earlier this week with a friend that runs a national distribution company. He's senior operations and purchasing person and you know they've been, he was talking about this, you know, he said at the end of the game it boils down to end of the day it boils down to how good of a supply chain game you've been playing all along because in the commodities that his organization sells a lot of they've been moving things out of China for a number of years because they found other countries where they even get better margin on those products. Their inventory is managed very well in these things and there's a big play for the people that have done a great job with supply chain to actually start taking some market share. 2, 2 key points though that he brought up that I thought were really interesting is that one is that nobody has been speaking about this is we're just either we're in right now or just getting ready to go into Chinese New Year where everything shuts down for pretty much a couple of months anyways. So if you don't have stuff pre purchased that's on the water already, we'll probably be have this whole the tariff thing with China roughly sorted out by the time things are gearing back up again. Anyways, super insightful thought. I.
