Shipping delays

[frugal-one]

A newsletter I receive has stated...

A reason for retailers to fret before the holiday: shipping delays are on tap.
A continuing high level of imports and a likely strong back-to-school retail season will further strain transpacific capacity during the usual peak summer shipping rush that precedes the holidays. A partial shutdown of the key Chinese port of Yantian because of COVID-19 fears is shaping up to be a bigger mess for ocean shipping than the Suez Canal blockage was in March. Fifty ships and 350,000 containers are waiting. This will add to shipping delays and cause some retailers to scramble.

[Tradd]

Hah! I've been dealing with that daily on the job since late last fall.

[Greg44]

Many of our vendors at work are experiencing extreme shortages of either raw materials, component shortages, and delayed arrival of cargo (via container ships). One vendor said the cargo ship isn't even allowed to leave Japan because of their are no place to park their ship and wait at US ports. I have had some product on back order for over a year! Customers just don't understand this - unless they are in the business. This is very inflationary. Many orders waiting for the same product with little supply...

[Rogar]

I have a couple of things on my wish list that I've been unable to get. Not critical now, but will need eventually. I check web sites of suppliers semi-routinely and the usual message is, out of stock. And I ordered blinds from a big box store in March that just arrived. Every time I called, the message was "parts shortage".

Since life here has turned into some semblance of normal, I think mostly because of the high vaccination rate and summer season, it's easy to forget that there are parts of the world where only a small percentage of people have been vaccinated and still experience waves of infections that cause shutdowns or other problems.