Covid-19: Retailers warn shoppers they might not get what they want
Tuesday, 1 December 2020
A long-time Invercargill bicycle shop owner won’t have children’s bikes to sell in-store this Christmas, a situation he has never been in during his 40 years involvement in the business.
“We have got a whole lot of bikes sitting on ships in the Hauraki Gulf, we can’t get them offloaded and sent down to us,” Wensley’s Cycles owner Rob McMurdo said.
“This is the first time in my career we won’t have kids bikes to sell over Christmas. They are just not going to get here. It’s quite a disastrous situation.”
He is not alone, with many other businesses of different varieties in a similar situation.
This is because suppliers are struggling to get merchandise into the country and through the ports because of the fallout from the world-wide Covid-19 pandemic.
McMurdo said Covid-19 had changed the landscape for bike sales, with customers mostly having to order bikes off him rather than buy off the floor.
He bought his bikes off New Zealand wholesalers, but the wholesalers were struggling to get them offloaded at the Auckland port.
Otago-Southland Business Association president Andrew Leys said manufacturing globally had slowed because of many countries being in lockdown, with the whole supply chain being thrown into disarray.
Also, many products from overseas had been held up at New Zealand ports because of a backlog of containers. This week, Port of Auckland spokesman Matt Ball said its bottle neck was caused because lockdown disrupted a planned launch of a new automated container handling system.
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Leys said he was in the carpet business and getting carpet into the country was difficult.
Production for its Melbourne supplier had been affected by lockdown and issues at the port had created delays in getting its product to New Zealand resulting in a “whammy on whammy”.
Most companies involved with home improvement had been doing really well in the past six months and the main constraining factor was the availability of products to meet consumer demand, he said.
Jason Smith, managing director of H&J Smith and owner of the Mitre 10 Mega stores in Invercargill and Queenstown, said they were struggling like everyone else.
Customers were starting to realise retailers were having difficulty sourcing stock as a result of the pandemic, Smith said.
“Getting stock through the ports is the biggest challenge we are facing because they are swamped and everyone is wanting it yesterday. It's definitely causing some concern.”
His company was working hard to get the key lines everyone wanted.
“But this is going to be a year of very difficult stock supply, without a doubt.”
Invercargill Plumbing World showroom sales consultant Lauryn Fox said they were having issues importing products, including vanities and showers.
They were waiting on shipping containers with product in them but had experienced “delay after delay”.
Some orders now being made were not expected to arrive till March, she said.
New Zealand Master Builders Association president Kerry Archer, of Invercargill, said there were issues getting product into New Zealand, including kitchens, tapware and light fittings.
As such, some homeowners had to make changes to their building plans to get products that were available now. He said many clients also had to wait about three months for windows and doors because New Zealand manufacturers were so busy.
“Homeowners need to be aware there needs to be lead times and possible changes in stuff that needs to be made.”
South Port chief executive Nigel Gear said a large majority of retail and home improvement cargo was imported in containers through main distribution hubs in Auckland and Christchurch, before being moved domestically.
South Port had not seen much variance in its cargo flows, but the disruption could potentially drive some of the cargoes through regional ports in the future.