I wanted to give parents and mothers fair warning about this Christmas season. It's going to be bad and it's already too late to prevent a toy famine. I've personally warned all my siblings, whom have many children.
I've spent about five years selling online, specifically eBay and then Amazon. I left before the pandemic started, but I'm still very much a part of online selling communities. I've also worked in the manufacturing industry, namely a foreign car company based in Ohio.
My selling circle is warning people to buy their Christmas gifts early. They're buying a lot of whatever they can get their hands on to hold for a much higher selling price. Some are even buying off of Amazon to resell on Amazon at a higher price in a couple months. They told me to. That it was like knowing a stock price will double or triple in a couple months. Not just the usual hot toys, mundane toys, like builder sets and other things you would find at Kmart. Why?
July is the deadline to receive the Chinese shipments to start prepping and sending them into Amazon. It takes time to catalog, label, package, ship, have it reach Amazon or other stores. You want it all in place before the end of back to school shopping, which starts in August nowadays. I decided to see if this hit any news cycles yet.
"Parents have been advised to buy popular toys early because of delays at Chinese ports. The message from the boss of The Entertainer, Britain’s biggest independent toy chain, came despite it still being the height of summer. It comes amid delays at some ports in the Guangdong province of China due to local Covid-19 outbreaks." - www.mirror.co.uk
"There may be fewer boxes under the tree this holiday season, as toymakers grapple with the possibility of a massive shortage in everything from dolls and action figures to vehicles and puzzles.
The coronavirus pandemic created a bottleneck in the global transportation pipeline, which was later worsened by the blockage of the Suez Canal in March. These shipping delays have hit almost every industry, including electronics, apparel and food." - CNBC
China has adjusted to this problem, not by finding more workers, but by INCREASING the price of shipping containers.
"The average price world-wide to ship a 40-foot container has more than quadrupled from a year ago, to $8,399 as of July 1, according to a global pricing index by London-based Drewry Shipping Consultants Ltd. The measure has surged 53.5% since the first week of May." - Wall Street Journal
I've personally confirmed this from sellers that buy wholesale and this was even before the new delta variant started to force new lockdowns. This translates to shortages, but at the very least a considerable increase in price to make up for the shipping rate increase. If you're planning on buying anything Paw Patrol for this Christmas, well I would do so today, as the movie release is expected to make it one of the hottest toy categories.