The ongoing supply chain fiasco continues to negatively impact our product availability for the upcoming holiday season, and at this point it doesn’t appear that we will receive our Christmas stock before Black Friday.
We placed our order with a Chinese manufacturer in March, and that order was shipped from China in early September. As of today, our product has been sitting on a cargo ship near the Port of Long Beach since early October. Based on what we’ve seen we may not receive our product until December, or at least that is the potential best case scenario.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do. But at minimum we do have our top selling products in stock, which include the Blow Mold Replacement Light Cords and the Blow Mold Back Plates. We have plenty of stock on hand of those products to see us through this holiday season.
Lack Of Product, Rising Retail Prices
Coupled with the problems associated with receiving our product, exorbitant transportation costs will affect retail prices on everything found in our retail store. We highlighted this topic in a blog post on July 5 that warned our customers of price increases as a result of global shipping rates.
Politics aside, this supply chain disaster has many causes. We could write a novel about the across the board failures of so many involved in the transportation and supply chain industries. And like so many small businesses, we are going to bear the brunt of these failures.
You count Christmas Lights Creations among those that consider these supply chain failures and transportation cost increases as nothing more than one big lame excuse.
Domestic and International Shipping
For those of you visiting our store for the first time, we offer free domestic shipping on orders of $150 or more. For residents in Alaska, Hawaii and the U.S. territories, we can not ship an order to you for free regardless of the amount of purchase. Please read the U.S. Territories blog for more information about shipping costs.
Our international customers can purchase products through our eCrater store. We use UPS in a very limited capacity and the USPS for the majority of our international shipping.