Mallory Jones, manager of Inspirations Furniture and Design, is busy trying to source items for the store, as she talks about supply chain headaches. She and her team are placing orders every day in order to keep as much inventory coming in as they can.
Inspirations used to get its custom products in the store within eight to 12 weeks, Jones says. Now, best-case scenario, the products make it to them in 20 weeks. Other items can take six months to a year.
Whitney Coleman, owner of Giggles, a children’s store in Willow Grove, picked out holiday items from the store’s catalog to order before the shortages began. Now, she says, they’re at the mercy of when the items come in.
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“It’s hard and very scary,” she says. “I track everything shipped on an Excel sheet every day, and every day I’m hopeful a box will come in. Things are coming, but slowly.”
The Backpacker, which carries a number of outdoor supplies from tents to running shoes, has had issues with many of its products, says Tyler Hicks, vice president. First, it was tent poles that manufacturers couldn’t get their hands on, and then they couldn’t get enough plastic for kayaks.
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Supply shortages and shipping delays have Baton Rouge retailers scrambling this holiday season, and in order to combat the shortages, sellers have had to make changes to their purchases for the Christmas shopping season.
Read the full story about how area businesses are handling the supply chain problems from the latest edition of Business Report. Send comments to [email protected].
This story originally appeared in a Dec. 10 issue of Daily Report. To keep up with Baton Rouge business and politics, subscribe to the free Daily Report e-newsletter here.