How Supply Chain Problems Are Impacting Holiday Shopping

Melissa Salazar went to three separate stores — a Target, a Best Buy and an Apple store — in Los Angeles, California on the hunt for an iPad on Dec. 2, but came up empty. 

To her surprise, there were no long lines at the stores, but some shelves were still cleared out.  Each store seemed to have the same issue: lack of supply. 

“I got to Target and they told me they didn’t have any more iPads in store,” Salazar said. “They checked online and the earliest I could get the iPad was Dec. 27, after Christmas.”

Later she went to Best Buy and had the same problem. 

Salazar decided to go to Apple, hoping she could secure her mom’s Christmas gift. But again, no luck. 

“Apple told me the 10.2-inch iPad was a very popular gift this year so they sold out quickly and it would be a while until they got more in,” she said. “Jan. 3, to be exact.”

For Salazar, this was aggravating.

“I had no idea the iPad was in such hot demand. It was frustrating going to three different stores and not finding it and now having to scramble to get my mom another gift or telling her she has to wait until after Christmas to get it,” Salazar said. 

She isn’t alone in her frustration. 

This year, consumers will have to be smart when shopping because of supply chain issues that have been ongoing for months. Some of the products holiday shoppers want could be sold out or take weeks to arrive.

The economic and social shutdowns across the country due to the coronavirus pandemic have led to reduced employment, production, distribution, and transportation of goods — all of which have combined to cause the lingering supply chain problems. Now that lockdowns have been lifted, consumers have started shopping again, this has led to chaos for manufacturers and distributors of goods who are struggling to keep up with demand. 

Caroline Betts, an economics professor at the University of Southern California, said at the start of the pandemic, there was a lower consumer demand for certain products at the start of the pandemic, but now that lockdowns have lifted, demand has skyrocketed. 

“Both the collapse in demand and the recovery were more rapid and of substantially greater magnitude than during a typical recession and recovery,” she said. “Global supply chains were not prepared for the collapse or the recovery. Household demand bounced back as economies partially reopened, supported by unprecedented fiscal stimuli. Temporarily stagnant international supply chains strained to meet international demand for intermediate and final products.”

So how does this impact the holiday season?

Consumers will see the effects of the supply chain issue reflected in the prices or delayed shipping. 

“I would guess there will be noticeable shortages of manufactured products that are in highest demand during the holidays; books, toys, clothing, shoes, electronic and “smart” products, and so on,” Betts said. “Uncertainty in shipping times and delays in shipping might discourage me from online purchases and encourage me to support local businesses.”

Businesses have started preparing for the holiday season, starting sales in early November.

“It has been reported that large retailers began to stockpile holiday high-demand products early, hoping to circumvent supply chain issues over the holiday period,” Betts said. 

But as much as businesses could try to stockpile items, sometimes there just isn’t enough product. 

Dean Salkin, a business manager at a Bloomingdale’s department store in California, said a large number of items are less available than they typically are. 

“Popular things are selling out, and we can’t get replenishment,” he said. 

He said his store has all inventory for certain brands out on the floor — meaning what you see is what you get.

“We have not one piece of backstock, and it’s because they can’t turn it around, they can’t react quick enough partly because of COVID,” he said. “There are supply chain issues, but it’s not specific to one material or one brand, it’s across the board.”

Salkin said, for the most part, customers are understanding of the supply chain problems. 

“Everyone gets it, no one’s ever gone through this before, so everyone has to be patient and understanding. No one foresaw tons of boats off the coast of Long Beach not able to dock,” he said. “The clients have been really understanding and patient. Generally they’ll go for something else because we can’t even get into when we will get the product back.”

Kristin Rivas has been very patiently waiting for a hot item — wood. 

The 25-year-old California resident has been shopping around at stores like Home Depot and Lowes for wood to build dining chairs, but the availability and price has been an issue. 

“Until I went to Home Depot, I didn’t realize wood was in such high demand right now,” Rivas said. “The selection wasn’t as good as in months past. I thought it would be a lot easier to find the type of wood I wanted, but I wasn’t able to find a good variety of options, and it is expensive.” 

Three months later, Rivas is still on the hunt for the material she needs, but said she isn’t in a rush. 

“I am buying wood to build something for fun, I feel bad for the people who actually need this item to build homes,” she said. 

And, as Salkin mentioned, delays at ports are impacting supply chains as well.

Betts said there is a shortage of truck drivers needed to move goods from ports. However, truck driver Geovanni Garcia said he doesn’t think that’s the case. 

Garcia owns his truck and has been driving it to several ports across Los Angeles County since the pandemic started in 2020. 

He said there are plenty of truck drivers. The issue is they can’t get any loads out of the port at times. 

“There are shipments, but the products aren’t always getting loaded because everything is stopped,” he said. “This is why we aren’t getting as many loads. The product is there, but sometimes we are waiting hours to get one load, where before we could do three shipments in a day, now because things are so slow, sometimes we can only do one.”

Garcia added that there are lines of truck drivers waiting to get shipments for hours, and sometimes they finish their work day empty-handed. 

“Sometimes we leave without a load,” he said. 

This impacts everyone, from businesses to consumers, but it also hurts truck owners. 

“It affects me because I own my truck. Truck owners need to pay gas, registration, and sometimes when we don’t get any shipments, we are wasting time and money waiting all day only to get nothing,” Garcia said. 

Unfortunately, he doesn’t see the situation improving anytime soon. 

“The ports are still full of containers, I don’t see this getting better this year,” Garcia said. 

Betts also said a contribution to the supply chain issue is fuel costs. 

“Rapidly rising energy and fuel costs in 2021 have aggravated each of these trade and transportation issues, again raising prices of traded products, but are also partly a result of them,” Betts said. 

As for when this will end, Betts said it’s hard to know. 

“The disruption to global supply chains we are observing is unprecedented,” she said. “This is both because the complexity of supply chains pre-COVID tariff war was unprecedented, and because the economic impact of a global public health crisis, in the complex modern trading environment, and conditional on modern fiscal and monetary tools, is unprecedented. How long it will take to resolve the disruptions is not something I would like to forecast.”

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