This year has seen an unprecedented wave of delays and shortages in just about everything. Lumber is at all time high prices, chlorine for your pool is expensive and scarce, and most terrible of all, Luke’s Toy Factory has been subject to multiple “out of stock” issues.
The culprit is always something small, like no Fire Truck Ladders, so no Fire Trucks. But that also means no 4 Packs, because the Fire Truck is in that combo. Then we ran out of Blue Cargo Crates, so no Cargo Trucks. And, no 4 Packs, again, because the Cargo Truck is in the 4 pack.
We could go on, but you get the idea. It’s the manufacturing version of Whack-A-Mole.
As for assessing blame, well that’s not so easy. The immediate cause is that our molder has been swamped with orders, and since we are a small, even tiny, part of their customer base, we must get in line with the big guys. The big guys are buying at an unprecedent rate, so the line is much longer.
This is good news for all of us. It means that American manufacturers are becoming the supplier of choice for an increasing number of companies, who have seen how fragile the Chinese supply chain has become. Shipping container costs are up 800 percent this year, so those toys are going to be a lot more expensive, if they even get here for the holidays.
In the meantime, parts that are finished today are in our factory tomorrow and shipped the next day. That’s the magic of sourcing locally. So, bear with us as we have shortages from time to time. It’s all in the service of a great switch to local, American made production, and it’s a good thing.