Over the past several months the garment apparel industry has had some supply chain issues. This includes shipping delays and product availability from manufacturers and distributors. This is having an effect on the brand, style and color of available shirts and also turnaround times of you receiving your order.
Shipping issues are a result of the major shipping companies, FedEx, UPS and USPS, having a difficult time keeping up with demand, therefore deliveries of blank products that used to only take a day or two can now take three, four, or more days. Orders from warehouses farther away can take five to seven or more days just to get the items in our warehouse. It has become such an issue that these companies have suspended their shipping guarantees all together.
The issues with actual blank apparel are a bit more complex. When COVID started to shut everything down, production worldwide stopped. Most of these products come from factories overseas. When they opened back up they had staffing issues for various reasons and have had a difficult time keeping up with demand. COVID also had an effect on the supply chain with getting the finished product out into the market. There are issues with getting the products into shipping containers, getting the containers on the ships, getting the containers unloaded at their final destination, getting the shipping containers through customs, and then, finally with shipping from the port to their destination at various distribution warehouses. All of this due to high demand with the reopening of the economy worldwide and issues with having enough people to do the jobs necessary to get the items where they need to be.
We are being told by representatives from the different distribution companies that this problem will likely carry over well into 2022 and possibly into 2023. The supply side is working to keep up with the demand side as much as they can.
What this means for our customers is that you may need to have a few different shirt colors in mind, be willing to use multiple brands (this will mean that the shirt colors could be slightly different) and styles (some may be 100% cotton, some 50/50 cotton/poly, and some 100% polyester) and order early if you have a planned event.
We are doing everything we can to keep our business running as efficiently and as quickly as possible with the circumstances we are currently under. We thank you for your patience and understanding!!