Amazon.com Inc is the latest corporation to increase its shipping capacity ahead of the holiday shopping season, according to the company. Amazon recently revealed that it has doubled its container processing capacity, as well as increased its shipping storage on ocean freight carriers. All of this is in anticipation of an expected busy shopping season that may become clogged or slow during the holidays.
For many months now, the global supply chain has faced many problems that have kept businesses from being able to easily stockpile their inventory — and has left many shelves empty over the month from time to time for various products. As the holiday shopping season nears, many companies are trying to stay ahead of these problems to ensure that their consumers get the products they want on time.
If these supply chain issues continue to be a problem for the country, then many businesses and stores may have low inventory this holiday season, as well as empty shelves. Many consumers have already started buying holiday presents now to try to get ahead of these problems, but supply chain bottlenecks may still persist.
So, many companies are already enacting measures to help keep their business running. Amazon is the latest to do so, ensuring their shipping capacity is increased to allow for more items to be shipped on carriers. Amazon also plans to hire about 150,000 season workers in the United States alone during this holiday shopping season. The company also revealed that it had increased ports of entry by 50%.
Other big companies have also already enacted measures to try to keep their businesses running smoothly this holiday season. For example, Walmart and Target both are chartering ships as a result of the slowdown of supply sea networks.
The government in the United States has also tried to help matters, as these supply chain issues could hamper the entire economy this year if businesses don’t perform well — and if they don’t have a large inventory of items to meet consumer demand. The White House has already urged private sectors to try to help ease these supply chain issues. As a result, overnight operations at ports in the United States have been expanded to try to help businesses meet delivery needs.
However, these supply chain issues aren’t just relegated to the seas and ports — though major issues lie there. Many companies in the U.S. are also experiencing a huge labor shortage, specifically a shortage of warehouse workers and truck drivers. Many companies, such as Walmart, have already come out and explained that they’re looking to hire tens of thousands of workers before the holiday season to help with warehouse and delivery alone.
While large corporations such as Amazon may be able to use their vast amount of money to solve their own supply chain issues, small businesses don’t necessarily have this option. As a result, many smaller businesses around the country may still suffer from these supply chain bottlenecks if these issues are not fixed before the holiday shopping season officially begins.