The kinks in the supply chain aren’t working themselves out and the backup is going to affect your holidays.
It’s Covid.
China had a big port that closed two weeks ago due to an outbreak, another port closed earlier, and now Ho Chi Mihn City in Vietnam is in lockdown. Three of the world’s largest shipping customers are warning clients to expect even more delays.
And next week is kind of the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season. Don’t tell stores or they’ll start putting out decorations for Labor Day. “Holiday shopping 2021 is definitely going to be impacted,” says University of Houston Supply Chain and Logistics Program Manager Margaret Kidd. “We should see much higher prices, less selection and less availability.”
Boy, that’s not what we want to hear for Christmas.
“I think we’re going to feel the pinch very severely with anything related to electronics or cars, but even with clothing and bicycles,” says Professor Kidd.
Bosch, a German technology and engineering group that is the world’s largest car parts supplier, says the supply chain for chips, an ongoing problem of the past year that has crippled auto manufacturing, is irreparably broken.
But it gets worse.
McDonalds is out of milkshakes. That’s being caused by a British “lorrie” shortage, what we in the States would call trucks. They are having the same problem hiring truck drivers America is. There is a chassis shortage that’s making things even worse.
All of this doom and gloom is coming at a bad time of the year for retailers, who make their profits off the holiday buying.
2021 may be no jollier than 2020 was. Bah Humbug.
photo: Getty Images