The latest in a series of comments on the challenges of freight and shipping, and its impact on the housewares sector, Meyer Group’s Adam Kavanagh and Carl Wright reflect on the current situation, and how it can be mitigated.
“The rapidly increasing price of shipping goods across the globe is affecting all industries including Housewares,” acknowledges Adam Kavanagh, group product and sourcing director. “A confluence of factors from soaring demand, containers shortages, overwhelmed ports and not enough sailing vessels and workers have contributed to the squeeze on transportation capacity on every sailing route. Covid outbreaks in Asian export hubs like China have made magnified the problem. The worldwide delays are contributing to many of the out-of-stock situations we are seeing across both online and bricks and mortar retail channels.”
Carl Wright, group marketing director for Meyer Group continues: “It feels everything is going in the wrong direction; we’ve (hopefully) come out of the year of Covid, battling for every sale, to only run in to supply chain issues, long lead-times from factories and shipping costs like we’ve never seen before.”
However, he emphasises: “Mitigating macro issues like is difficult but not impossible. Working hard with our retail partners to ensure longer term planning is in place but also measuring the weekly sales trends to anticipate any risks to supply is key to ensuring we deliver to our usual standards. From a consumer point of view, continuing to innovate, building value into the products and creating a need based on insights is vital.”
Summing up, Carl states: “With costs increasing, it’s never been more important to add value with consumer.
* If you are a housewares supplier or retailer who would like to add your comments to HousewaresNews.net’s Freight Debate please email joh@max-publishing.co.uk
