Electrolux has told Appliance Retailer exclusively that it is planning a price rise in the range of 5% to 8% from April 1, opening the door to similar moves from its direct competitors. Meanwhile Fisher & Paykel has advised its retail partners that will increase its pricing on March 1.

 

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These moves follow the public announcement on Wednesday by Jonathon Ling, the chairman of  Sunbeam’s parent company GUD Holdings, that the small appliance supplier will increase its prices by 8% immediately.

“This [price rise] is a direct result of the declining value of the Australian Dollar and its impact on imported products,” the  Electrolux spokesperson said.

Appliance Retailer understands that retailers will be informed of this rise officially in writing in order to provide sufficient time to prepare for the increases at the end of the first quarter of this calendar year.

Meanwhile, Sunbeam’s direct competitor in the small appliance industry, the publicly-listed Breville Group, is yet to indicate whether it will increase pricing further after undertaking increases in the middle of 2015. These were effective  on its products including the Breville and Kambrook range of small appliances. Breville’s recently appointed CEO, Jim Clayton (pictured), is expected to announce the company’s half year results in the last week of February.

Appliance Retailer also spoke with Panasonic managing director, Paul Reid who acknowledged that rises were a possibility.

“Based on the current exchange rate environment, Panasonic is studying the possibility of price increases in selected consumer electronics and appliance categories sometime over the coming months.  However, nothing has been decided at this time Reid said.”

Over at LG Electronics, general manager of marketing Angus Jones explained that the company was “as bound to exchange rates as anyone”.

“At this stage, we don’t have any increases planned, but we never  say never. When we recently introduced new models we did take the exchange rate into account.

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