2021 Supply Disruptions

[Dirt Roads]

I'm guessing this shortage is only because of the 2/$4 sale going on (probably to clear out inventory and take advantage of the time of the year).

The sale patterns have been so strange during COVID.  This time last year, we couldn't find any white cream pasta sauces for about 3 months.  The week they finally showed up on the shelves at Food Lion (early October, if I recall correctly) all of those white sauce products were on an incredible sale.  We still had a few jars left on the shelf (so we weren't desparate), but I still would have paid double the normal price for a few jars.  Instead, I was able to stock up at way less than half price.  The shelves got wiped out quickly, but there hasn't been any problem since (nor have we needed any).

[hbelkins]

I'm starting to notice the beginnings of shortages of paper towels and toilet paper at our local dollar stores (a Family Dollar and two Dollar Generals) again. However, the local IGA seems to have plenty of the brands of paper products they carry.

[Pink Jazz]

I'm having trouble finding pink glow necklaces.  Luckily I bought some ahead of time for Halloween, but I wanted to order some on Amazon Prime to ship some to Puerto Rico for New Year's. It seems like only pink is affected and all the other popular colors seem to be readily available. I wonder if the compound for pink is more expensive. I almost never see it at Dollar Tree either except occasionally in the form of glow wands. In terms of brightness and glow duration, pink is the third dimmest and shortest-lasting color, behind white and purple.

[ZLoth]

so we had to use our 8 year old SUV to haul our stuff to NY! 

In what world is an 8-year-old car considered old?

Heck, we just bought a new car a couple of weeks ago, and it's 12 years old.

It's not the age, it's the mileage. My eight year car has only 90,290 miles on it, so it has plenty of life left provided I take good care of it. Since I'm working from home, I'm only filling up once a month nowadays.

[ZLoth]

From CBS News:

Chip shortage likely to keep car prices sky-high through 2023

Back in the spring, a shortage of computer chips that had sent auto prices soaring appeared to be finally easing. Some relief for consumers seemed to be in sight. But that hope is now fading, as a surge in COVID-19 cases from the Delta variant in several Asian countries is worsening the supply shortage, further delaying a return to normal auto production and keeping the supply of vehicles artificially low.

That means record-high consumer prices for vehicles – new and used, as well as rental cars – will likely extend into next year and might not return to earth until 2023, according to analysts.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

[LM117]

I'm guessing this shortage is only because of the 2/$4 sale going on (probably to clear out inventory and take advantage of the time of the year).

That's what I thought too, but zooming in shows the text "PRICED LOW EVERY DAY", meaning it's one of those annoying things grocery stores do (mine is guilty of it too) where they just show the regular price on a larger tag to make it look like a sale. It also looks like a loyalty card is required to get that price.

Yeah, Food Lion uses MVP cards. Anyone can get them for free.

[LM117]

Up next, Lunchables!
Blown out at Food Lion over by my area.
My shopper sent me this image

You order through a shopper and your diet contains Lunchables?

We use a service called Food Lion to go.

They started doing that after Walmart started their service. I've hardly ever seen anyone use Food Lion's pick-up service here. One of their stores here even took down their banners advertising it, even though it's still listed as a "To-Go" store on their website.

[JayhawkCO]

King Soopers out here (Kroger Brand) does the pickup shopping and we use it every week for our staple stuff.  I still go in if I'm trying to get something specific for dinner.  Way more convenient to just click what I want and then show up at a pre-determined time and have someone bring it out to my car.  Especially since it's free for purchases > $50.  The only issue I've ever had is sometimes I feel like they pick the worst/oldest produce they can find (apples going brown and mushy after a day or two).

Chris

[hbelkins]

King Soopers out here (Kroger Brand) does the pickup shopping and we use it every week for our staple stuff.  I still go in if I'm trying to get something specific for dinner.  Way more convenient to just click what I want and then show up at a pre-determined time and have someone bring it out to my car.  Especially since it's free for purchases > $50.  The only issue I've ever had is sometimes I feel like they pick the worst/oldest produce they can find (apples going brown and mushy after a day or two).

Chris

I actually saw a King Soopers on my trip, but cannot remember where. They had a gas station, and for some reason I thought they were a convenience store chain, not a full-service grocery store.

[JayhawkCO]

King Soopers out here (Kroger Brand) does the pickup shopping and we use it every week for our staple stuff.  I still go in if I'm trying to get something specific for dinner.  Way more convenient to just click what I want and then show up at a pre-determined time and have someone bring it out to my car.  Especially since it's free for purchases > $50.  The only issue I've ever had is sometimes I feel like they pick the worst/oldest produce they can find (apples going brown and mushy after a day or two).

Chris

I actually saw a King Soopers on my trip, but cannot remember where. They had a gas station, and for some reason I thought they were a convenience store chain, not a full-service grocery store.

Almost all of them have gas stations too where you can use your points you rack up for their loyalty program.  I normally get $0.30/gallon off once or twice a month.  Not a small amount with a 21 gallon tank.  They're pretty much the biggest grocery store around here with Safeway coming in second.

Chris

[vdeane]

I feel like the grocery store shortages are returning.  When Mom and I were at Wegmans Monday, it looked like the stores did in March 2020.  And now paper products are once again having issues, after just finally getting back to normal.  I had to bounce between four different stores to find decent toilet paper in a usable size/quantity.  What's strange is that this time it's the smaller quantities that are gone; if you need a 9+ pack, stock is plentiful, but if you only have room to store a 6 pack or smaller, finding stuff is problematic.

[hbelkins]

Rumors of a number of logistics companies (shippers) walking out if Biden's 100-plus-employee shot mandate is put into effect.

If the transporters quit working, we're all in trouble.

[Rothman]

Rumors of a number of logistics companies (shippers) walking out if Biden's 100-plus-employee shot mandate is put into effect.

If the transporters quit working, we're all in trouble.

Quitting?  Pfft.  Demand is too high.  Those who are willing to be vaccinated will take their place.

[hbelkins]

Rumors of a number of logistics companies (shippers) walking out if Biden's 100-plus-employee shot mandate is put into effect.

If the transporters quit working, we're all in trouble.

Quitting?  Pfft.  Demand is too high.  Those who are willing to be vaccinated will take their place.

Those with CDLs and those willing to cross a picket line in defiance of a union work stoppage.

What I heard came from the UPS hub in Louisville. We'll see if it comes to pass. It'll take awhile for OSHA to write the regulation, for it to go through the proper approvals, and that's assuming enforcement isn't stayed by a judge once one of the promised lawsuits is filed.

[NJRoadfan]

The following shortages cropped up here in NJ:

-Snapple products.
-Pepsi products.

There are notes on the shelf now informing customers of supply shortages, yet these items are still going on sale regardless.

In other news, I finally secured a video card on the Newegg Shuffle. Its pretty sad that one has to enter a lottery to get a chance to buy computer hardware. Last time I was at MicroCenter and had to buy a cheapo video card. The store landed up carding me to enforce their 30 day purchase limit, even though I was buying a low end card that dates to 2017! (for way too much money)

[ozarkman417]

I ordered a laptop for school from HP recently. I definitely won't be surprised if my custom order (that is already not supposed to arrive until late October) gets delayed as a result of part shortages.

[vdeane]

Rumors of a number of logistics companies (shippers) walking out if Biden's 100-plus-employee shot mandate is put into effect.

If the transporters quit working, we're all in trouble.

Quitting?  Pfft.  Demand is too high.  Those who are willing to be vaccinated will take their place.

There was already a shortage of truck drivers before this.

If the transporters quit working, we're all in trouble.

Send a shuttlecraft.

[ZLoth]

In other news, I finally secured a video card on the Newegg Shuffle. Its pretty sad that one has to enter a lottery to get a chance to buy computer hardware.

Those danged BitCoin farmers. I'm still utilizing the desktop (with DDR3 memory) that I built in September, 2014, although the video card was upgraded from a nVidia 980 to a 1080 three years ago, plus upgraded the main drive from a 256MB SSD to a 1TB SSD drive. I had planned on replacing it two years ago, but that got superseded when I relocated to DFW and I had to get some home repairs. I'm now holding off until maybe next year when DDR5 memory goes on sale, and even then, I'm not confident on component availability.

As for hard drives... ay yi yi! Thanks to the Chia cybercurrency farmers, the price of storage shot up this past summer, and is only starting to go down. I was hoping to upgrade the drives in my TrueNAS server to some larger sizes, but ouch. Per Amazon:

• Seagate 8TB NAS Hard Drive - Currently $216 ($27 per TB), but was on sale last week for $200 ($25 per TB). Went as high as $242 ($30.25 per TB) over the summer.
• Western Digital 8TB NAS Hard Drive - Currently $229 ($28.63 per TB). Went as high as $255 ($31.88 per TB) over the summer.
• Seagate 10TB NAS Hard Drive - Currently $330 ($33 per TB) which is the current high point for the Amazon price. Went as high as $395 ($39.50 per TB) for third party.
• Western Digital 10TB NAS Hard Drive - Currently $280 ($28 per TB). Went as high as $391 ($39.10 per TB) for third party.
• Seagate 12TV NAS Hard Drive - Currently $485 ($40.42 per TB). Went as high as $515 ($42.92 per TB) third party.
• Western Digital 12TB NAS Hard Drive - Currently $494 ($41.17 per TB). Went as high as $529 ($44.08 per TB) for third party.

And these were drives that were as low (when on sale) as $185 ($23.13 per TB) for 8 TB, $250 ($25 per TB) for 10 TB, and $308 ($25.67 per TB) for 12TB back in February and when I started saving when I started to run out of room. I was hoping to pick them up as a Black Friday special, but I had a hard drive failure last week, and needed to begin the replacement process.

[Quillz]

This one, to me, seems to be a bit of an exaggeration. I mean, I'm no Rockefeller, but this 15% increase in the price of gas would not be enough to change my travel plans.

Same. I couldn't wait to travel this year, and did. Yeah, gas was a bit more expensive, but it was worth it because I did a week's worth of traveling. Much better than sitting around at home.

[LilianaUwU]

One of the (arguably non-essential) supply disruptions I've experienced is Dr Pepper. I absolutely love me some Dr Pepper, but I sometimes have to go up to a few months without it.

[ET21]

The coin shortage I've heard about finally reached some of the rural towns of NW Illinois a couple weeks ago and here last week.

[Pink Jazz]

One of the (arguably non-essential) supply disruptions I've experienced is Dr Pepper. I absolutely love me some Dr Pepper, but I sometimes have to go up to a few months without it.

No trouble finding it here in Arizona.

Is Dr. Pepper in your area distributed by Coke, Pepsi, or some other bottler?  Here in Arizona the canned/bottled version is distributed by Coke, while both Coke and Pepsi distribute the fountain syrup.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Tony Chachere's creole seasoning is one I've looked for but haven't seen in months. Ida won't help that happen now.

[kalvado]

What the heck is going on with Delta?! They said everything is expected to be back to normal after next month

Things should be back to normal by 2025 or so

[hbelkins]

Anyone else noticed a lot of bare shelves in the candy departments at various stores?