From building materials to toys, cosmetics and groceries, supply chain disruptions are impacting almost every facet of the economy right now. WMRA’s Jessie Knadler checks in with Valley consumers, builders and retailers to get a sense of how they’re faring when so much of what we buy is in short supply.
[sound from Sarah’s house]
‘All I want for Christmas is a functional supply chain.’ That’s the song people are singing up and down the Valley in the run-up to the holidays.
Sarah Littlefair in Lexington has been washing her dishes and taking showers in her back yard. For months. Why? Supply chain disruptions.
SARAH LITTLEFAIR: This is my kitchen that I’ve been using since the beginning of July because I’ve not had a kitchen sink.
She points to an outdoor sink hooked up to a mini water heater on her back patio. Nearby is a tall tent containing a makeshift shower. Showering outdoors in November isn’t what she envisioned when she started her house renovations back in May.
LITTLEFAIR: Super fun.
First, she and her husband were told their new kitchen cabinets would take twice as long to arrive than usual. It ended up taking about fourteen weeks. Then the workers who installed them did a shoddy job.
LITTLEFAIR: If you throw a level on any cabinet in the kitchen right now, like every cabinet, it’s not level, it’s not plumb.
Littlefair is convinced the subpar workmanship is a byproduct of the current labor shortage, another gift of the pandemic.
LITTLEFAIR: It’s, like, lack of experience because, you know, it’s some contractor that’s hired a subcontractor that’s hired subpar people to do this work. So, because there’s nobody else to do it and there’s nobody else to do it right now. It would have been a better situation if we had just installed them ourselves.
Littlefair is not the only one experiencing what feels like permanent delays. Ernie Campbell is the owner of Evermore, a commercial contracting firm in Harrisonburg (who, it should be noted, has no involvement in Sarah Littlefair’s kitchen renovation).
ERNIE CAMBPELL: We have experienced delays and shortages relevant to light fixtures, faucets and some flooring from overseas.
Manufacturers who used to offer maybe ten product lines now offer three because they don’t have the workforce or the transportation to get them delivered.
CAMPBELL: We’ve had cases where product is sitting available states away that no one can get shipped to us.
Erin Blanton is the owner of Pufferbellies, a toy store in Staunton. She says that two of her largest toy vendors announced they’re no longer accepting any new orders through the rest of the year—as in, no new toy orders right before Christmas.
ERIN BLANTON: That was a little bit surprising and it’s not normal.
In anticipation of supply chain snags, Blanton, like a lot of Americans, did her holiday ordering early. The second-floor storage space of her shop is completely packed with inventory. And business has been hectic, a somewhat unexpected surprise given the retail doldrums of the last few years.
BLANTON: It’s been a very busy year. People are really shopping.
She senses people just want to be out spending money in brick-and-mortar stores again post-pandemic.
In fact, people are shopping IRL—in real life—so much that Irina Dovganetskiy, owner of withSimplicity cosmetics in Harrisonburg, can’t keep her branded shopping bags in stock. Part of it is supply chain—she reordered the bags back in July—but part of is that people want to come in and buy things. The asymmetry between supply and demand has made her streamline her business.
IRINA DOVGANETSKIY: You have to be proactive. You have to come up with plan A, B and C. For me, I have girls that depend on me. This is my livelihood. So we’re just trying to be creative and know the ingredients that are easily sourced.
Sourcing local matters. Steve Cooke is the general manager of Friendly City Food Co-op in Harrisonburg. For the longest time, he says he had a hard time getting his hands on things such as frozen fruits and vegetables. But for staple items including dairy, meat and eggs, he’s covered. Why? Because those items come from local sources.
Friendly City Food Co-op is a financial supporter of WMRA.
STEVE COOKE: We don’t have any of those problems that other places are having.
Local producers who aren’t dependent on overseas shipping and complicated supply networks may come out relatively unscathed in the current climate.
Oh, one other thing—Cooke says that if you want cranberry sauce with the actual berries for your holiday table, you’d better buy it now. He said he was informed by his distributor that real cranberry sauce won’t be back in stock until February.
COOKE: So if you want cranberry sauce for Valentine’s Day, we should have it by then.
Not to worry, stores should have the canned jelly alternative. You can always get that.
