“People are bored with everything” in their wardrobes, Welch says.
The sales rebound has made the crunch more severe than in March and April, analysts say, when demand largely evaporated along with supply.
Higher prices on the way
The supply network, meanwhile, is clogged. Last spring, shipments from China dwindled to a dribble. They’re snapping back after that country was among the first to recover from the health crisis. In August and September, imports from Asia to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, increased 22% from a year earlier, according to Supply Chain Management Review. But containers are piling up at the ports, which don’t have the workers to store and move them, the trade publication says. The congested ports have increased the time it takes truckers to drop off or pick up containers.