Supply chain issues may have effects on Holiday season shopping

Supply-chain issues have been a concern since the pandemic began and those issues could make the holidays a trying time, with delays in everything from furniture to toys expected. We talked about all this with Hitendra Chaturvedi of ASU’s W.P. Carey School of Business.

Chaturvedi said these concerns are valid and won’t be going away anytime soon for Americans.

“Before the Holidays, think of supply chain being a python and our demand being a pig. Imagine a python trying to swallow a pig, now imagine the holidays are coming up and change that python into an elephant,” Chaturvedi said.

Chaturvedi said the supply chain system was already stressed to its limit and the Holiday season orders coming are going to stress it even further, and we don’t yet know what the breaking point is.

He said every sector of supply chain is going to be hit. Books because of all the raw materials involved and labor shortages in factories.

“The strength of the supply chain is the strength of the weakest link,” Chaturvedi said.

The supply chain has three important factors according to Chaturvedi: Efficiency, speed and cost. Inefficiencies in the supply chain are decreasing the speed of shipping containers to America.