One day a week I handle customer service for a local high-end furniture retailer I am a little familiar supply chain situation. Last year the delays were mainly from our Italian manufacturers as they had to get up and going again after shutdown but overall it was short-lived. Currently the bigger Italian manufacturers can get their containers in and out of High Point North Carolina easily but there are delays when trying to ship those items domestically. Not only is it a shortages of truckers but also shortages of transport companies that handle loads on pallets. Many went bankrupt last year.
Europe is being impacted though because last week we had a shipment bumped due to lack of container availability.
Domestically the manufacturer in Texas has been impacted because of a foam shortage. The plant to make the foam was shut down during the freeze and to get it up and going has caused delays. They also have screws for the base of their most popular chair somewhere on a container ship waiting at Long Beach. The previous 4 week turnaround for a custom piece has turned into 8-10 weeks. Same turnaround time as an Italian piece.
Canadian manufacturers keep raising their wholesale prices so the owner of the store is dropping one of them. It doesn’t pencil out anymore. The fallout from all of this is just going to continue.
It is indeed spooky to think of containers filled with Chinese though as mimics it would be out of their cultural character to do something that audacious. Besides they haven’t even invaded Taiwan (yet) and are staring at the same resource issues everyone is.
Robert, it could be that what she was dreaming is what’s already been happening. The invasion has of US businesses has been going on for years. But I must say that these massive numbers of cargo ships off of our coasts is bizarre.
One day a week I handle customer service for a local high-end furniture retailer I am a little familiar supply chain situation. Last year the delays were mainly from our Italian manufacturers as they had to get up and going again after shutdown but overall it was short-lived. Currently the bigger Italian manufacturers can get their containers in and out of High Point North Carolina easily but there are delays when trying to ship those items domestically. Not only is it a shortages of truckers but also shortages of transport companies that handle loads on pallets. Many went bankrupt last year.
Europe is being impacted though because last week we had a shipment bumped due to lack of container availability.
Domestically the manufacturer in Texas has been impacted because of a foam shortage. The plant to make the foam was shut down during the freeze and to get it up and going has caused delays. They also have screws for the base of their most popular chair somewhere on a container ship waiting at Long Beach. The previous 4 week turnaround for a custom piece has turned into 8-10 weeks. Same turnaround time as an Italian piece.
Canadian manufacturers keep raising their wholesale prices so the owner of the store is dropping one of them. It doesn’t pencil out anymore. The fallout from all of this is just going to continue.
It is indeed spooky to think of containers filled with Chinese though as mimics it would be out of their cultural character to do something that audacious. Besides they haven’t even invaded Taiwan (yet) and are staring at the same resource issues everyone is.
Thanks for sharing. The draconian lockdowns will have very long term affects on the global economy.
Robert, it could be that what she was dreaming is what’s already been happening. The invasion has of US businesses has been going on for years. But I must say that these massive numbers of cargo ships off of our coasts is bizarre.