A broken supply chain is not a problem for the logistics industry but it’s a moneymaking opportunity, reports LA Times.
Trapped vessels
Thirty-thousand high-end snow globes are trapped in San Pedro Bay, split between two shipping containers on two ships in the idle flotilla offshore.
One ship arrived in late September; the other in late October. They’ve been stuck at anchor ever since.
Liz Ross, co-founder of CoolSnowGlobes, says that at this point in the season, all is lost. Her snow globes — representing $1.5 million in sales — needed to get to customers before the holidays.
But Wan Hai Lines Ltd., the Taiwanese shipping corporation that owns those vessels, is making a record profit this year. So is every major ocean shipping company, trucking company and warehouse company, as consumer demand has led to a 20% jump in imports.
Supply chain crisis
The supply chain, defined as the system of moving goods from factories and farms to end consumers, is tied into knots and failing to deliver.
But supply chain companies, each a private entity that hopes to make as much money as possible out of the surge in consumer demand, are having their best year ever. At the moment, that means there’s little financial incentive to resolve the supply chain crisis quickly.
“Right now consumers are screaming because they don’t have the product and the price is going up,” said Christopher S. Tang, a distinguished professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management who studies supply chains, “but the big players are quietly happy.”
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Source: LA Times
