FEATURE
PAIN IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN The immediate bumps in the supply chain may be temporary, but lingering issues will force c-store retailers to rethink their strategies By Melissa Kress
consumers are finding an unwelcome sight in stores today: empty shelves, or shelves filled with unfamiliar brands. The reason? A supply chain that continues to face headwinds, which only seem to be holding steady instead of improving as the United States and the world near the second anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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For nearly 24 months, there has been an ongoing level of supply chain disruption on a global scale. More recently, incremental to that, there’s been additional effects from the holidays, weather issues, and some absenteeism around the omicron surge, according to Jess Dankert, vice president of supply chain at the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA). “At this point, retailers have learned to deal with the disruption on a baseline level — the disruption we have been seeing throughout the pandemic. They already have that playbook in place. Some of the shortages we see in pockets now is really due to the acute impact around the holiday, the surge and weather, but those will begin to tail off as we get away from them and retailers have a chance to recover, restock and replenish the shelves,” Dankert said.
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While the challenges that have popped up since late winter and early spring 2020 have been fueled by the pandemic, the health crisis also shined a spotlight on existing issues. “Looking back at the early pandemic, you see those outages and you can see the consumer psychology around the need to stock up. But the ongoing level of disruption that we see on a global scale is exacerbating the existing systemic challenges in the supply chain, particularly domestically,” Dankert explained, pointing to outdated port and freight infrastructure across the U.S. “The pandemic hit and that really shined a light on the need for modernizing the infrastructure, especially in the ports,” she said. It also shined a light on end-to-end visibility — the data infrastructure piece — and the need to have a better understanding of the supply chain, the movement of goods through the supply chain, and better identify and address bottlenecks when they happen, according to Dankert.
The Domino Effect Consumer demand has certainly played a role in the challenges retailers have faced keeping their
