3 Questions to Ask When a Resin Supplier Pushes a Mid-Month Price Increase

Mid-month resin price increases don’t happen by accident. Suppliers time them deliberately, landing between settlement periods when buyers have less data to push back with and less time to evaluate alternatives.

The compressed timeline creates urgency. Accept now or risk allocation. That’s the framing, and it works on buyers who treat the letter as an announcement rather than an opening position.

But it doesn’t have to work on you. These are the three questions that separate justified cost-push moves from opportunistic margin grabs.

1. What Changed in the Last Two Weeks to Justify This Resin Price Increase?

Demand a specific trigger. Feedstock spike. Unplanned outage. Export shift pulling domestic supply. A real mid-month increase ties to a real market event.

“Market conditions” is not an answer that you should accept. If your supplier can’t point to a specific, verifiable development, the increase is likely a margin-enhancing play. PE producers in particular file price nominations year-round as a strategy, not a reaction. Summer demand? Filed. Hurricane season? Ready. They nominate early and often, knowing a percentage will stick.

So, check the data yourself. Pull ethylene and propylene movements. Look for announced force majeures. Review ACC production data if you have access. If feedstock costs haven’t moved meaningfully since the last settlement, you have your answer.

Pay attention to the magnitude, too. If propylene moved 2¢/lb but your PP supplier is pushing 5¢, the gap between feedstock movement and the requested increase is pure margin. Cost-push increases should roughly track the underlying input. Anything beyond that is negotiable.

2. How Does This Compare to Current Resin Spot Prices?

Spot prices are the fastest market signal available. If spot is flat or declining while your supplier pushes a contract increase, the disconnect speaks for itself.

That’s why you want to track the spot-contract delta. When spot trades below contract for weeks, a mid-month increase has no market support. In early 2024, PE contract prices rose 5–7¢/lb while spot prices were actually declining. Buyers who tracked spot knew the increase wasn’t fully supported by the market. Those who didn’t, however, absorbed the full number.

Most suppliers assume their buyers don’t watch spot daily. The ones who do are significantly harder to push increases on.

3. Will You Apply This Same Speed When Resin Prices Drop?

This is the asymmetry question. A supplier who pushes increases mid-month should be willing to pass decreases mid-month, too.

So, ask directly. Get the answer documented. If they hedge or deflect, you’ve confirmed the timing is selective. And this pattern across the industry is well established: increases apply immediately, decreases “require evaluation.” Naming this pattern out loud changes the power dynamic. Suppliers count on buyers accepting the asymmetry silently.

You can also use this moment to push for a contract term. Build the language so it requires index-linked adjustments to flow both ways at the same speed. If the supplier resists symmetric application, that tells you everything about who the current structure benefits.

Turn Urgency Into Leverage

Remember, none of these questions are hostile. They’re reasonable, and any prepared buyer should be asking them. The mid-month tactic only works when buyers accept the urgency at face value and skip the validation step.

And over time, asking consistently changes the dynamic entirely. Suppliers learn which accounts will absorb and which will challenge. The accounts that challenge with data don’t just get better pricing on the current increase—they get treated differently on every future one.

Thankfully, ResinSmart gives your team the real-time feedstock, spot, and supply data you need to evaluate any increase the moment it hits your inbox. No scrambling. No guessing. Just the market as it actually stands.

So schedule a demo and see what it looks like to respond to the next mid-month increase with data instead of uncertainty.