Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Attention shoppers, attention people who sell things to shoppers, now we'll open up the phones for business owners and consumers alike. How is the global supply chain and the continued disruption caused by the COVID pandemic impacting your shopping as a customer or your business as a seller? Tweet @BrianLehrer, or give us a call now at 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. This is about the shortages of so many things being reported and discovered now. What's in short supply that you've been trying to buy, or that is slowing down your ability to do business? Help us report the story of the supply chain shortages at 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280.

Want some examples? The Atlantic has a story that dropped just in the last few days that says in Vietnam and Malaysia, where workers churn out products as varied as a third of all shoes imported to the US and chip components that are crucial to auto manufacturing, controlling the far more transmissible Delta variant, the article says, "has meant sharply decreasing manufacturing capacity and reducing manpower at busy container ports." That's a quote from the Atlantic article. Business owners or those who deal with the international supply chain in any way, for work, are you hearing from your factories directly about what's going on?

What about the price of shipping containers or imported materials? What is it about this summer, now fall, of 2021 compared to even to last year when the pandemic was newer and things were more locked down, that driving up consumer prices or shipping delays or just creating shortages for your company? How are you compensating? Are you raising prices to compensate, contributing to inflation or some other way, or just can't you get stuff at all? 646- 435-7280, 646-435-7280.

Here's another example that may be about if you have tried to get happy in New Jersey, maybe you're noticing a shortage of booze. Northjersey.com reports that last year, liquor store owners said they had trouble getting canned beers, blame it on a shortage of aluminum, today it's bottled beers, blame it on the pandemic and on international tariffs. "Top-shelf tequilas, forget about it." That's a quote from northjersey.com, they wrote, "Forget about it." If you were thinking about driving to another state to stock up, you can forget about going to Pennsylvania.

Last week, the Pennsylvania State Board in charge of consumer liquor sales announced that it was limiting sales of certain alcoholic beverages to two bottles per customer per day. That was not to prevent alcoholism or drunk driving, that was because of shortages of bottles. Two bottles per customer per day in Pennsylvania. Those working in the liquor industry or bar or restaurant industry in New Jersey, you want to help us report this story? What are you out of and why? No matter what industry you working in or shoppers, what can't you get? How's that couch delivery working out? 646-435-7280, and we'll take your calls right after this.

Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we're inviting you now to help us report the story of the supply chain shortages. What can't you buy? What can't you sell because you can't get the stuff? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. Our lines of full right now, so you can get in as people finish up, and let's start with Josh in Oceanside who sells coffee, I think. Hi, Josh. You're on WNYC.

Josh: That's right. They call me Java Josh. Hello, Brian. Huge fan.

Brian Lehrer: Glad you're on. Tell us your story.

Josh: Well, we're getting started. We're in farmer's markets all over Long Island. We have a great following, and I can't get the plastic cup to put the iced coffee in. Restaurant people haven't had them since June and I've been calling suppliers all over the country. I think I have enough right now, but it's really dicey. I'm paying three times the amount, and it's all because of COVID and the shipping problems coming out of California.

Brian Lehrer: Have you been able to trace it a level deeper than that? What is it about COVID that's causing a shortage of plastic cups of all things?

Josh: Well, what I heard was that they shut down the port out in Long Beach, California and that when they reopened, there was such a backlog of ships waiting to get unloaded and a shortage of labor that there are ships waiting out in the sea to get unloaded to this very day. Then they got to get truck drivers to take the containers to the various destinations, and that creates another bottleneck. I don't really have firsthand experience with that, but this is what all the suppliers have been saying, and they've been saying it for months.

Another item that I can't get ahold of is bulk sour gummy worms, bulk sour gummy worms. You can buy them in the grocery store and prepackaged, but we sell them-- We pack them ourselves and sell them, and they have just been out of stock for the last four months.

Brian Lehrer: I'm glad you said you package them and sell them because I was worried for a minute that you sell gummy worm-flavored coffee, but that's not what you do. Since you're showing up at farmer's markets in our area, do you want to say the name of your company? You can do that.

Josh: Thank you. We're New York [unintelligible 00:06:41] Coffee. We're online, but you have to spell out the whole name, New York [unintelligible 00:06:48] coffee.com.

Brian Lehrer: Josh. Thank you. Good luck out there. Caitlin in Montclair. You're on WNYC. Hi, Caitlin.

Caitlin: Hi. I know a lot of people in this recent flood lost their cars, and I think people have been having a really hard time getting both new and used cars because of the chip shortage. It's so really bad for people out there. I also just wanted to say I think people need to be really patient with stores because I think they're really doing their best. Just a reminder to everyone, probably start your Christmas shopping early because I think they're going to have a hard time if they're waiting for three-day delivery.

Brian Lehrer: I know. I've seen an article or two like that. I can't believe it, it's September and they're saying start your Christmas shopping now. Whoa. Do you have a car story yourself about trying to get a car?

Caitlin: No. Fortunately, we were okay with our car, but I know our cleaner lost her car and she's having a terrible time working with the insurance as well. I think she's borrowing for now, but she went in just to get some prices and even used cars were just far more expensive than she expected.

Brian Lehrer: Caitlin, thank you very much. It's September 23rd and we're talking about Christmas shopping, Anu in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC. Hi, Anu.

Anu: Hi. It's so nice to be on, Brian. I have a business that caters to products of body, mind, and spirit, and they're natural products. I like to use glass as much as possible. I have a frosty glass bottle that I use for my body oils, and they've been on backorder since April. When the pandemic first started, I couldn't even get plastic bottles because a lot of-- I was told by one of my vendors that a lot of companies that sold alcoholic beverages switched over to selling sanitizers, and they would buy just a whole lot, so there was nothing for the small business owner like myself.

Brian Lehrer: How are you compensating?

Anu: I had to switch over to plastic for this product. This is a luxury product, it should be in glass. I send out a newsletter every week, I explain this situation to my customers, and they're very accommodating, but I would prefer to put less plastic into the environment.

Brian Lehrer: Plus you don't want to sell quality in plastic, it just doesn't feel right. Right?

Anu: Exactly. In terms of being a consumer, I started a Facebook page called Shop Your Closet because I'm moving and so I'm trying to get rid of things, and I realize the amount of clothes I have is ridiculous. I knew other people who are in the same situation. When women are stressed, one of the things they do is shop. I've encouraged a number of women to stop buying clothes for a year and just shop their closets, but wear things they haven't worn in a while. Many of them had clothing that still had tags on it that they hadn't worn, that they bought in months and years ago. Then I encouraged them to give away what they're not wearing, what they no longer can fit or it's not their style anymore to like shelters and other nonprofit organizations.

Brian Lehrer: That's, of course, a great, great thing to do. I know a guy, Anu, who started working from home at the beginning of the pandemic and he looked at his own class and he's like, "I have so many shirts. I can't believe how many shirts I have." He wasn't wearing any of them anymore. He's doing sweatpants and Ts or whatever he was doing. That's an interesting thing to raise. Thank you very much. Good luck out there. Laurie in Long Island City, you’re on WNYC. Hi, Laurie.

Laurie: Hi, Brian. Thanks for this and all your wonderful shows. Yes, I'm an interior designer. While this-- We've got a perfect storm going, that would be and is admittedly a boom to my industry, with lots of people that have been cooped up at home, realizing that things need to be updated or replaced. They've got money that they're not spending on travel or entertainment now. The industry is very busy, but the supply chain issues are absolutely ridiculous with the lack of trucks, truckers, containers, ships, even things that I waited two months for one piece of furniture that was on the dock in Vietnam, just waiting for a ship to come and pick it up.

Then once it got to North Carolina where, as everyone knows, most of the furniture industry is based, it had to wait another two months just to be painted. Then another six weeks to get it from North Carolina to New York. Recently, I had something that I was told was in stock. When, I know now, to say, in which country is it in stock? I was told, no worries. It reached the port of Charleston, South Carolina. All it has to do is be unloaded and shipped to North Carolina. That process took a month. Then it took one month to get it from Charleston, South Carolina, to Hickory North Carolina, which ordinarily would be a three-hour drive.

Some of my vendors are telling me now that they're shipping, and I'm talking about one end table, I'm not talking about upholstery, that's a whole other thing. They're telling me that they're starting to ship things from South Carolina to North Carolina by rail because they can't even find a truck to put an intake log.

Brian Lehrer: Is that a shortage of that piece of it? I'm curious if that has to do with drivers because I also read that meat manufacturers like Tyson Foods are having trouble hiring right now. This is according to the website, fooddive.com. The website FreightWaves, which covers news in the trucking industry reports that the national vaccine mandate might be making a lot of truck drivers quit and the ripple effect from there.

Laurie: There's lots of different factors, but the lack of truck drivers is definitely one of them. I also think that one of your previous callers mentioned the thing with trying to get new cars on the computer chip. I also think there's a shortage of trucks. There's this perfect storm of high, high demand and very little, not only supply but then when you can find something, then trying to just get it simply across the state line.

Brian Lehrer: Is it affecting price or just waiting time?

Laurie: No. It's definitely affecting price. I've had one lighting company that has had four price increases since January. When I questioned them on it, so much of their product comes from China. They said that a container they used to charge be charged $5,000 for a container to be shipped, now they're being charged $20,000 for a container to be shipped. Everybody is having more-- because once a year price increases were pretty much standard. Now it's three, maybe four times a year, or they're adding surcharges to everything. Custom upholstery, one of my vendors, they'll just add a big fat surcharge that we'll just say "COVID-19 Surcharge," that will be a high percentage. It's definitely affecting pricing too.

Brian Lehrer: Depressing, but very clear. Laurie, thank you for checking in. We really appreciate it. To a whole other industry, it looks like, from Elliott in Princeton. Elliott, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Elliott: Hi. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. You work in the cosmetics industry.

Elliott: Yes, I'm in purchasing for a large cosmetics company, and we're having it. Well, first of all, these price increases all over the place, but also the lead times are tremendous. A lot of it is the ports in California. If you're bringing something in from Asia, they're all backed up. Then the trains going through Chicago get backed up. We can't get glass components for little bottles. We can't get plastic for little bottles. We can't get pumps. I don't understand why we're not seeing the big price increases at the retail level that we're seeing at our end.

Brian Lehrer: Your story, like a few of the others that we've heard before, seem to trace back to the difficulty in getting things shipped from China.

Elliott: Some from China, India, Thailand. There's also, we buy a lot of the things that are fats and oils from palm oil and coconut oil. I've heard that a lot of times they bring labor in from other countries to harvest those crops. Because of COVID, they can't bring in the labor across the international borders. That's one of the problems. Then it's the trucks, as some people kept talking about the trucks and truck drivers, I don't know if older drivers retired during the pandemic when there was no demand, they just can't pick up the things fast enough and transport them.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Elliot. We heard in an earlier segment about the New York economy, about retirement in general among people, especially, who might fear exposure to COVID in their particular lines of work. Retirements are definitely a thing across industries. Caroline, in Crown Heights, you're on WNYC. Carolyn or Caroline?

Caroline: It's Caroline. I'm so happy to be on the show. I work in the cheese and dairy industry. We've had this ongoing issue that hit us almost immediately. When you make cheese, something that a lot of people don't think about it as it has to age for sometimes six months to a year. When you're buying your milk and you're putting it into cheese and you're aging it, you have to predict what the market is going to be like in six months to a year from now, which has been impossible and honestly depressing to try and do because everything is just so. You don't want to think about the future. It's scary right now.

What that has led to is a lot of dairy farmers and the types of farmers that I work with are real like stewards of the land. They're small dairy farmers, these aren't the big factory farms. These are small, like New York State, Vermont, Wisconsin farmers. They're drawing off their herds, they're selling their herds. They're not able to bring in the revenue that they usually would. Then if you go on the conservative side and you don't buy as much milk, you don't produce as much cheese, but then there's all of a sudden, a big demand for it, you lose out on sales.

If you overbuy and then there's a surplus, you're burning money anyway. It's just been a real ongoing struggle that even if there is an end to the pandemic, which I really hope it is, it's going to take several years for the dairy and the cheese industry to come back from that.

Brian Lehrer: That's so sad. Explain it-- I don't quite get it, explain briefly again why, if these dairy farmers are relatively local, let's say Northeast regional and selling their products in the region. What's the bottleneck?

Caroline: The bottleneck is we have to secure our milk months prior to when the cheese gets made and then we start aging it. The bottleneck is happening where they are drying off their herds. When you dry off your herd, it affects the whole year. There just isn't enough milk to go around for everyone. With less herd, and they're selling less milk, then it's less revenue for the farmer.

Brian Lehrer: Caroline, thank you so much for checking in and good luck out there. We're going to end with a rainbow at the end, says Elena in Westchester. Elena, you're on WNYC. We've got about 45 seconds for you. Hi.

Elena: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. I love your show, repeat caller. Both my daughter and I are in the market for replacing our cars. We live in the same household and we commute in the same direction. We've tried to shop, however, we all know what the market is like. In the end, we decided to commute together. Try to sell my car and hopefully, see a cleaner and brighter rainbow because we're only using one car.

Brian Lehrer: One less car in the family and family togetherness on your commute.

Elena: There you go. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Elena, good way to end. Thank you very much. Thanks to all of you who called, and wow. I'm looking at the board and we could have gone on, from industry to industry to industry, describing shortages and various supply chains. Maybe we'll come back to this. The Brian Lehrer Show is produced by Lisa Allison, Mary Croke, Zoe Azulay, Amina Srna, and Carl Boisrond. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen works on our daily podcast. Megan Ryan is the head of live radio, Juliana Fonda and Liora Noam-Kravitz at the audio controls. I'm Brian Lehrer.

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