Normally, on-line shopping is my last-bastion of hope for shopping during the holidays. Federal Express is my friend. This year, however, I’m seeing signs of retail supply chain stretchmarks, even though there are more than two shopping weeks left. My advice is that if you have any on-line shopping to do, do it right away and here’s why:

• Holiday sales seem to be up and retailers are unprepared. I’ve placed several orders for business needs and they are all being shipped late.


• Shipping companies are delivering things late. I currently have an overnight UPS package that is two days late and some Express Mail that is late. My customers are showing a higher-than-normal late-rate on Federal Express as well, though not as bad as the other carriers.


• Some of the web sites I was planning to order from already have notices to expect delivery in 2-4 weeks!


• Amazon is actually out of some rather mundane items (not just PS3 and Wii machines)

So, get your shopping done now, call vendors to make sure they have your items in stock and will ship quickly. Don’t bet on express carriers saving you this year. And most of all, don’t overspend :).

This entry was posted on Friday, December 8th, 2006 at 16:21 and is filed under Social Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.