We’re thrilled to announce that, effective March 1, we will be officially eliminating IFS charges on all new orders of overseas stones. This is a major milestone in our Forging Our Path Back to Normal initiative, which remains a top priority for all of us at Salem Stones. At one time, these fees were as high as 26 cents per pound, so this is, indeed, an important moment.  

Coming as it does so close to the third anniversary of the Covid-19 shutdown, this also feels like a good time to reflect on what we have accomplished together. Without doubt, our industry experienced significant stress over the past three years. Yet, we never stopped showing up for families in need. We are proud to have been able to help you to provide the best possible service in such challenging times. 

We’re also pleased to have returned our business practices to pre-pandemic expectations wherever possible. Here’s a brief review of what we’ve managed to achieve:

Today, we are excited to introduce our new website, a home(page) for us and a hub for our valued customers. We believe that the eye-catching design captures all the best attributes of Salem Stones: clarity, transparency and innovation. 

It represents one more example of how we used the challenges caused by Covid and its aftermath to both reaffirm our mission and enhance our operations. The site is now even more intuitive and user-friendly than before, coupling a comforting visual experience with easy-to-find information. In other words, the website is very much like Salem Stones itself—a caring, dependable place for monument dealers, cemeteries and funeral homes.

Our customers know that our ceaseless efforts to be such a place meant returning to pre-pandemic normal as fast as we could. That we have done by increasing inventory, eliminating surplus charges, accelerating delivery times and capping prices. Displaying the same creative and efficient problem solving that has marked our 16-year history, we hired experts in supply-chain management, warehouse operations and more. We also invested in industry-leading technology to enhance the client experience during both the design and ordering phases and to refine our packing and shipping capabilities. (Salem Inspire, which allows you to check real-time inventory and create monuments around the clock, is just one example of these improvements.) Our team’s hard work over the past year has allowed us to present a striking contrast to our many competitors that continue to struggle with supply-chain issues, elevated pricing and delayed delivery.

Fittingly, we now cap off this busy year of transformation with our updated website design. (There will be similar design changes to our branding at national industry events, on social media and in our communications.) It is, officially, a new era at Salem Stones. And yet, at heart, we remain unchanged, a company committed as ever to being the industry’s best supplier of granite, in every possible way and, of course, to being there when everything matters.  

I’m pleased to announce that Salem Stones has more good news to share.

Effective Monday, January 23rd, we will be reducing the delivery times on import orders from 150 days to 120 days. In other words, we will be back to our pre-pandemic standard!

This improvement is the next step in our commitment to a complete return to the way we operated in 2019. As always, our sole aim is to help you best serve your families, whether that be with faster deliveries, better prices or larger inventories.

Please contact us here with any questions.

Sincerely,

Lenin

As 2023 begins, we remain committed to both helping you provide the best memorial products at the fairest cost and to providing full transparency into our operations. And so, we are writing now to tell you that though many of our competitors have used the new year as an opportunity to raise prices on imported granite, we will not be increasing our own rates on imported granite at this time.

We have been working diligently to return to a pre-pandemic normal as well as removing variables that create challenges for you, our customers. While many others are raising prices across the board, we felt that keeping import granite prices consistent as we enter 2023 would remove one more variable for you and the families you serve.

The domestic granite market continues to be volatile from a pricing and supply timeline perspective. Effective January 16, domestic granite prices will increase just 5%. The exception to this would be on North American Pink products that are ordered from our Columbus, Ohio warehouse which will be 15% higher.

We look forward to serving you this year. Please let us know if you have any questions about pricing, or require assistance in placing standard or custom orders.

Sincerely,

Lenin

Another exciting announcement as we continue to improve the customer experience: We are reducing shipping times on all orders from 10 to 5 days.

EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY:

Every order out of our Columbus Warehouse will be ready to ship in 5 days, whether it is a blank or custom stone.

Other recent announcements from our  “Forging Our Path Back to Normal” initiative:

• A further reduction in IFS charges to $0.20/lb on stones from India and $0.15/lb on stones from China.
• We reduced timelines for custom imported stones from 180 to 150 days.

Salem Stones is committed to “Forging Our Path Back to Normal” to best serve you and the families you serve. Please contact us with any questions.

Earlier this month you may have seen our “Forging Our Path Back to Normal” announcement and Update from Lenin. In these communications we were excited to make two announcements:

1. Timelines for custom imported stones were reduced from 180 to 150 days.
2. International freight surcharge (IFS) was reduced 11.5%, from $0.26/lb. to $0.23/lb.

Our team has been working diligently to improve processes within shipping & receiving as well as within our warehouses. These improvements lead us to today’s exciting announcement!

Effective immediately we are able to reduce shipping timelines from 15 to 10 business days.

We are committed to Forging Our Path Back to Normal to best serve you and your families.

At Salem Stones, we continually work to make improvements in our business. We do this primarily by investing in our people, our processes, and the latest available technology.

In fact, our goal as a company is to work in partnership with our customers in “Forging Our Path Back to Normal” within our industry. As a next step down this path, Salem Stones has reduced the timelines for imported custom stones from 180 days to 150 days. This will allow our customers to provide more certainty with promise dates with their families.

Also last year, based on enormous increases in shipping rates we implemented an international freight surcharge (IFS). While we have not seen significant declines in these rates, they have in fact stabilized. Therefore, effective August 15th, we will be reducing by 11.5 %, from 26 cents per pound to 23 cents per pound.

Salem Stones continues to monitor these rates very closely and as prices decline, we will reduce the IFS accordingly.

Please watch for more “Forging Our Path Back to Normal” updates and announcements as we will continue to keep you updated while we make improvements in our business.

We are honored to support you and the families you serve.

Lenin Kailasammani
CEO, Salem Stones Inc.