{"id":36311,"date":"2021-11-19T08:43:36","date_gmt":"2021-11-19T13:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/?p=36311"},"modified":"2021-12-14T15:41:51","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T20:41:51","slug":"when-should-you-buy-your-holiday-gifts-a-supply-chain-expert-has-advice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/2021\/11\/when-should-you-buy-your-holiday-gifts-a-supply-chain-expert-has-advice\/","title":{"rendered":"When should you buy your holiday gifts? A supply chain expert has advice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"When<\/p>\n

Shoppers should take a special strategic approach in 2021, says College of Business logistics guru Craig Austin.<\/p>\n

By\u00a0David Drucker<\/a><\/p>\n

A supply chain expert has a warning for those\u00a0putting off their Christmas\u00a0shopping.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt used to be you could order around December 18\u00a0and still get your gifts,\u201d says Craig Austin MBA \u201998, an assistant teaching professor\u00a0at FIU Business. \u201cNow, all bets are off.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Craig
Craig Austin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken up the global movement of goods.\u00a0People\u00a0have changed jobs,\u00a0factories have closed down\u00a0and demand has skyrocketed for certain products.\u00a0The result is\u00a0that\u00a0some retailers can\u2019t guarantee the on-time\u00a0delivery of items\u00a0due to shortages.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But don\u2019t fret yet that your Christmas, Hannukah and other holidays\u00a0will be ruined. The supply chains are actually performing\u00a0well under these\u00a0conditions, Austin says. The shakeup just means that\u00a0shoppers should take a special\u00a0strategic approach this year.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI would first look online,\u201d Austin says.\u00a0\u201cIf you are having difficulty and seeing that there are waits, then\u00a0leaving your browser up and\u00a0walking\u00a0into the\u00a0stores is a good idea. These are huge retailers and they have muscle in terms of acquiring products for you.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If\u00a0shopping online,\u00a0Austin recommends hitting the order button early.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Monday of Thanksgiving week or as soon as possible,\u201d he says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For those who feel comfortable venturing out,\u00a0shopping in-person could\u00a0be an intriguing option.\u00a0Many retailers have increased the size of their\u00a0inventories in\u00a0response to uneven freight\u00a0imports.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Traditionally, the whole idea for retailers was to have products \u2018just in time.\u2019 They carried as little inventory as possible because there is a carrying cost to it,\u201d Austin says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019re not in that environment anymore.\u00a0We\u2019re in a \u2018just in case\u2019 environment.\u00a0Just in case they don\u2019t get their\u00a0imports, they can\u00a0make money by selling what\u2019s on their shelves.”<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The additional cost of acquiring more products will be passed on to consumers this holiday season through\u00a0higher prices, says Austin. In fact, he\u00a0claims that inflation as a whole\u00a0is being driven higher by supply chain costs.\u00a0Consumer prices soared in October and are now up 6.2% from a year earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe last time I checked, there were 81 ships waiting off of the port of Los Angeles,\u201d Austin says. \u201cWhat some of these retailers have done is they have leased their own ships. Or in the case of Beanie Babies, they are air-freighting them into the U.S. Air freighting is not cheap.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A
A map from Marine Traffic on Nov. 15 shows 86 container ships off the coast of Los Angeles waiting to unload their cargo. Source: freightwaves.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite the supply chain woes of 2021, Austin is hopeful that most people will be able to buy what they want for Christmas, although at a slightly higher price.<\/p>\n

\u201cI prefer to be an optimist, even though I\u2019m a realist as well,\u201d Austin says. \u201cMy sense is that most people will be able to find their products if they order soon enough, especially if you go into the retail stores.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shoppers should take a special strategic approach in 2021, says College of Business logistics guru Craig Austin. By\u00a0David Drucker A supply chain expert has a warning for those\u00a0putting off their Christmas\u00a0shopping.\u00a0 \u201cIt used to be you could order around December 18\u00a0and still get your gifts,\u201d says Craig Austin MBA \u201998, an assistant teaching professor\u00a0at FIU […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":36323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4243],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36311"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36311"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36335,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36311\/revisions\/36335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}