Shipping the past year has been a nightmare. Products have sold out and not been available for months. Shipping to customers takes longer. And it does not look like it will be getting any better- in fact it looks like it will get worse.

I cannot keep up with the stock outages on our site- I recommend emailing me to confirm stock and if I confirm it ORDER it right away!  Stock confirmed in the morning is wiped out and gone by the afternoon. I cannot control what my suppliers have on hand- and we are all trying as hard as we can to keep everyone updated. If something you order is out of stock I do send you an email letting you know it is backordered and when I expect it to come in.

Next issue is restocking-  I just read an article that said pre pandemic I (or my suppliers) could count on getting products on time about 60% of the time- even pre-pandemic shipments were not at 100% on time. Now- they are lucky to arrive 40% of the time as scheduled. A major port in China is closed. There are 44 container ships sitting off the coast of California as I write this today. There are not enough people in port to unload them- and even if they did there are not enough truckers to get the products to whoever needs them.

Add to all this a major hurricane. The NY Times published this story: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/business/hurricane-ida-supply-chain-shortages.html So even the unreliable infrastructure we had to get product is now shaken.

I have most suppliers quoting me a three weeks before they can even get me blanks. That is stock in hand for them. They are so over run with orders. One of my biggest suppliers is quoting me two MONTHS before they can get me product.

Bottom line- if you need product for the holidays you need to have already ordered it- or order it TODAY!