![]() ![]() ![]() “On top of that, you don’t have the airfreight cargo anymore because you’re not flying international flights, which used to fill up the bellies of the planes with high-value goods.” The Washington Post reports that fees for shipping from Asia have quadrupled in some cases. “I’m expecting it to be a big issue in July, and we really don’t expect that to clear up until the end of the year,” Fiore said of the shipping delays. Imports from Asia-China in particular-have been held up due to the pandemic and are soaring in price. Transporting raw materials, components, and finished products has also been an issue for international furniture supply chains. As Grabar wrote, “A new sawmill could take years to be completed-and the last lumber price spike, in 2018, came and went in half that time.” Building more mill infrastructure is expensive and risky, and wood prices are already starting to drop. At the same time, sawmills pared back operations after the Great Recession and now don’t have the capacity to ramp up production, even if the timber they want to cut is in plentiful supply. There’s been a run on wood not only due to the demand for furniture, but also because of a boom in homebuilding and renovations. As my colleague Henry Grabar reported, a lopsided supply-and-demand dynamic has been playing out in the sector. ![]() Lumber is the other crucial raw material for furniture that’s become much pricier and more difficult to come by. “For example, you can get a custom leather sectional all cut and sewn, but to complete it you need the little steel components.” “On the higher end, custom-made stuff, it’s the little components that just keep it from being completed,” said Jerry Burdick, owner of iDeal Furniture in Las Vegas. This tends to affect more expensive products. ![]() We carry about 200 vendors, and the furthest one we have is quoting September 2022.” Demand for new furniture has boomed during the pandemic, particularly since the third quarter of last year, with people setting up offices and decked-out lounging areas in their homes.Īdditional fallout from the February storms has left other factories playing catch-up in churning out domestic supplies of nuts, bolts, fabrics, drawer rails, and brackets for holding together chairs and shelves. Now they’re taking 25 to 35 weeks for a special order,” said Steve Giorgi, who co-owns the Giorgi Brothers Furniture Showroom in San Francisco. “A sofa normally would take eight to 10 weeks in regular times. Extended delivery windows for furniture have become common as the global economy has begun to shake off its pandemic sleepies, with kinks emerging up and down the supply chain. It has rarely been so hard to get your hands on a bar cart, love seat, or dining room table. As of yet, the missing half-couch has not arrived. “Honestly I think a big part of starting over in a new place and moving, renovating, and buying furniture-some used, some new-in this time is just getting a little comfortable with uncertainty,” she said over text, adding that this isn’t the only recent furniture purchase for which she’s had to wait. Messer chalked up the delay, and her bisected couch, to the vagaries of the pandemic. Over email, customer service told Messer that Joybird needed three to five days to search a loading dock and find the rest of her order. ![]()
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