Important Considerations for Your Fall Gifting
As your partners in gifting, we’d be remiss if we didn’t ensure you had a clear picture of the current buying landscape as we head into fall, at what is typically a very busy gifting season.
The global supply chain has been severely impacted by Covid-19, not only by the illness itself but also the fallout caused by material and human resource shortages in its wake. From the farmers, yarn spinners, textile manufacturers, cut-and-sew factories, to the plastics suppliers, cardboard suppliers, decorators, transportation, and logistics companies, at home and abroad, products are harder to secure, and have longer than normal lead times to decorate and ship.
A closer look at some of the factors impacting our gifting supply chain
The Cost of Raw Materials
With any commodity, prices are driven by supply and demand. The cotton supply has been dramatically reduced by the prohibition of Xinjiang cotton, causing the price of cotton to increase an average of 31% year-over-year. There’s also been an increase in polyester demands, as well as plastics, and other silicates.
+31%
Cotton
+29%
Polyester
Exchange Rates
Over the years, the U.S dollar has weakened against many global currencies, including the Chinese Yuan and Honduran Lempira. Brands in the United States are paying these global vendors in dollars. Vendors are paying their own workers and suppliers in their country’s local currencies. When the dollar was strong, they were making more locally and now that the dollar has weakened, they are earning less.
Weakening USD
Ocean Transportation & Logistics
Costs to transport goods across the ocean have spiked by 293% year-over-year and it continues to rise. Additionally, due to a shortage of dock staff, there is severe congestion at our US ports and delays have hit record highs. The domino effect of the port congestion has also caused a shortage of sea containers for product reload, all of which is delaying product getting where it needs to be.
+293%
Ocean Shipping
What Now?
As an extension of your team, we want you to know that many of our trusted supplier partners were able to land some deeper levels of inventory over the summer, however as we move closer to a return to ‘normal’, demand is increasing and inventory is depleting, and so prices continue to rise. We encourage you to start the gifting conversation early in order to ensure the broadest selection, and on-time delivery.