Nov. 19 2021 Recently, the United States has been in a deep supply chain crisis, and there are serious congestion problems in many ports. The resulting shortage of materials has made American enterprises, especially small enterprises, complain endlessly. Some small American small business owners said that they would go directly to Chinese factories to pick up goods to ensure sufficient inventory.
NBC reported on the 18th that supply chain problems in the United States have led to shortages of pet food, Christmas trees, toilet paper, baby products, etc. Large retailers such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot have guaranteed supply through private freight forwarding. For example, Beanie Babies manufacturers bypassed congested ports and used 150 chartered planes to transport the required plush toy products from China to the United States. According to the report, these solutions are too expensive for small businesses to afford.
“What we are doing now is to place a bigger order and bring the goods directly to our warehouse (from China).” A small business owner said bluntly. According to the report, to ensure that there are enough products, small businesses in the United States have to be creative and minimize delays. In some cases, they will go directly to the Chinese factory to get the order. On the other hand, it also allows enterprises to open their own warehouses in the United States in order to bypass port congestion.
Pish Posh Baby is a baby store in New Jersey. It used to pick it up in China. In the past, they did this to save costs, because manufacturers sometimes gave some discounts to merchants who picked up goods directly from their factories. However, due to the current supply chain congestion in the United States, the purpose of their trip to China is different from before.” Nowadays, manufacturers don’t have enough profits to provide discounts, so we only go to China to get products. We don’t want to save money. We (go to China to pick up goods) more frequently. Charlie Bernbaum, the company’s chief operating officer, said that by picking up the goods, the company has been able to have more control over distribution and deliver goods to customers faster. What I’m doing now is to place a bigger order and take the goods directly to your own warehouse.
Not only Wish Posh Baby, but also Kids2, an American toy company with multiple brands, has also felt the pressure from the supply chain crisis. Ryan Gunniger, CEO of the company, said that the demand for retailers to pick up goods directly from Chinese factories has increased, and a total of 10 large retailers have made similar demands on him.” Retailers are looking for large companies like us to help them solve some supply chain problems. Gunniger saw the trend early. Fortunately, his company had a solid foundation in China before the supply chain problem appeared. This also allows Gunnigel’s company time to deal with (supply chain problems) and seize more opportunities. He also said that even if he was prepared, if he ran out of inventory, it would take about six months to replace it. Even if the company can obtain products directly from China and bear the freight of the United States, there is still a backlog of products in American ports. Once the ships in the port can dock and unload the cargo containers, these containers will queue up in the port’s processing center, waiting for labeling and picking up the goods by the shipper.
Levai Conlow, CEO of Lectric, an electric bicycle company in the United States, also said that the process may now take weeks instead of a few days. Especially when the delay is most serious in February and March, it will take five to six weeks to arrive at the company from the moment the goods arrive at the port.” The third-party logistics and distribution center in Los Angeles is no longer available. They don’t have enough channels to ship the goods out. Conlow said.
The report concluded that the “dramatic” measures taken by small American enterprises to maintain inventory and meet demand showed that the supply chain crisis put great pressure on retailers. As Bernbaum said, “From purchasing goods to delivering products to American customers, there are problems all the way.”
