Tarrytown, N.Y. — Suppliers of components and materials across the furniture industry are all having to grapple with tariff pressures at present, but the extent of the impact varies widely depending on where and how companies manufacture their goods.

“There’s no silver-bullet solution, so we are focused on controlling the controllables,” Prosperino told HTT sister publication Furniture Today. “The tariffs, unfortunately, are not in our control. We have to operate around them, and so we’re focused on our product first.”

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Ultrafabrics has production in Japan and Mexico, which Prosperino said provides an advantage since levies on those countries are lower compared with other bases, with preferential carve-outs for textiles under the USMCA providing an additional benefit. “Of course we’ve got to deal with the pricing issues, but the tariffs are certainly here to stay. We’re fortunate that out of Japan, the tariffs are not as aggressive as some other countries in the Far East, and that’s working in our favor,” Prosperino said. “The product out of Mexico, operating under the USMCA, is tariff-free for us coming into the United States, which is attractive to our customers.” A flexible approach to logistics has also helped the company manage inventory and distribution, he added. “We also operate a free trade zone in our warehouse and distribution center in California. When our product comes in from Japan, it just sits in that free trade zone, and depending on where the product is being used, we can even avoid the tariffs between the U.S. and Japan in some specific situations.” Serving customers While Ultrafabrics may be navigating tariff uncertainty more smoothly than some peers, Prosperino said the company is aware that customers face significant headwinds. That has made support and communication a top priority. “Each year we come up with a new directional trend presentation that we offer up to our customers,” which he explained involves each team working on customer-facing business functions. “Our sales team, our product team, delivers and our head of merchandising all deliver it to the customer. “We’re going to continue to represent and support our customers to the best of our ability,” he continued. “This means providing best-in-class customer support, which we believe is going to allow us to continue to win in the marketplace. The tariffs are going to be there; we’ve got to operate around them and do our best to work through them.” Lessons from the pandemic Prosperino said the company also drew lessons from the pandemic, which reshaped its approach to logistics and sourcing. “The pandemic forced us to think about business differently, and we really spent a lot of time thinking about logistics,” he said. “We took a step back and said, how do we improve our geographic footprint in terms of logistics?” Both the mill operations in Mexico and the California free trade zone stemmed from that process, which began during the pandemic. “We could have never predicted that tariffs would have come down the pipe a few years later,” Prosperino said. “We found ourselves partnered with a mill in Mexico that brought us speed to market during COVID, and now, as we face the tariff situation, we have positioned ourselves well in both Asia and Mexico. We’re going to continue to push.” That forward-looking approach is paying big dividends in a difficult environment, he added. “We absolutely have seen some lift (in our business), especially in larger projects where speed to market is important and meeting deadlines is important,” he said. “We’re seeing capital being freed up for projects that weren’t anticipated by the specifier, all arising from our mill partnership in Mexico and our speed-to-market initiative.”