Supply route delays!
Internet retailers and other companies that import products from the Far East to the UK are facing major supply chain disruption and increased logistics costs as a result of a global shortage of shipping containers.
Container shortage leading to more supply chain headaches
As many of our customers and colleagues will be aware, one of the effects of the pandemic has been on international trade and sea freight delays.
As countries shut down one-by-one last March, and people turned to online retail like never before, overseas haulage and supply routes suddenly found themselves overwhelmed with demand. And now supply chains are facing huge delays as the effects of Covid make themselves known across the industry.
There are a number of reasons for these delays, but one of the most critical is a global shortage of shipping containers. Estimates vary wildly, but the average guess is that there were around 43 million shipping containers in global circulation in 2019. As the pandemic hit in 2020, the demand for shipping goods from Asia to Northern Europe quadrupled from pre-Covid levels. Everything from home office furniture to PPE for hospital staff, to components for medical equipment such as ventilators needed to be moved across the world, and quickly. This required a huge rise in available shipping containers. However, as the pandemic has worn on, the human effects of Covid have affected both the movement of these containers, as crews and port staff have fallen ill or been quarantined, and the production of new stock, as the Chinese factories producing the containers have been hamstrung by staff illness and loss. These factors have led to both a lack of new containers being produced to meet the demand, and containers not being available where they are scheduled to be.
As companies here in Europe wait desperately for orders to arrive, retailers have been left frustrated as products run out of stock with weeks of lead time, whilst manufacturers are reporting that vital components are taking weeks to arrive, affecting production lines across Europe.
Here at Tate, we have been lucky enough to keep our supply chains open and continue to provide for our customers from our huge range of stocked items held in our warehouse in Bedfordshire. However, the effects of the international supply chain delays are still forefront of our minds. We would advise any clients who rely on overseas deliveries to order in a timely manner to account for the severe delays being seen across the board, and to consider other, more local sources to ease the pressure on the system.
Although it feels like the end is in sight, as countries roll out vaccine programmes and remove personal restrictions, it is worth noting that Covid is still a dominant and disruptive force across the world, and the issues that are affecting global trade will remain in play for some time to come. If you would like to know more about the way Covid is affecting trade and logistics, you can read the full article here:
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Container shortage leading to more supply chain headaches - shdlogistics.com