From China to Best Buy: Gaming controllers hit bumps on way to U.S. consumers – Reuters
PEMBROKE, Mass./DONGGUAN, China, Dec 15 (Reuters) – Fraser Townley eyes two gaping holes in one side of a pallet one of his workers just pulled out of the orange Hapag-Lloyd shipping container that arrived here at his warehouse from China one recent chilly morning.
“Clearly a forklift,” he mutters.
The damage could have happened anywhere along the 10,710-mile odyssey his company’s gaming controllers make from China’s Guangdong province where they are manufactured to his warehouse 30 miles south of Boston, just one stop on their way to big-name retailers like Best Buy. Yet Townley, CEO of T2M, is grateful to have his products arrive at all.
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A global breakdown of supply chains in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a sharp contraction, then a snap back in demand that caught most businesses wrong-footed, has overwhelmed ports and left manufacturers, retailers, railroads, and truckers scrambling to get goods to shelves, especially in the crucial runup to the year-end holidays.
The number of container ships idling off Los Angeles – the nation’s busiest port complex – has hit record highs, while growing piles of empty containers crowd the docks.
The situation is so dire that a White House task force is working to ease the backlog, while shortages of imported goods are blamed with helping fuel an inflationary surge that has the Federal Reserve as well as many consumers on edge.
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