The pandemic has disrupted supply chains around the world, affecting most countries including the US. Some experts comment that the spending habits of Americans are part of the problem – they buy more goods than they need, especially during lockdowns, thus fueling shortages.
Stuart Vyse, a psychologist, and columnist told the WBEZ Chicago news station that when at home, shopping generates expectations – people wait for their packages to be delivered and to enjoy what’s in them. Online shopping makes everything easier and accessible within minutes but it also involves the issue of self-control. Technology has advanced publicity mechanisms and social media targets commercials towards the user, making it hard to resist. Such a wide reach together with the accessibility of goods and products then overloads the supply chain.
Shopping is a form of entertainment and stimulation with some people calling this phenomenon, ‘shopping therapy’. American consumerism began in the 1970s with the creation of free telephone numbers to order goods from catalogues and the introduction of credit cards that could be used to buy anything (unlike gas cards or dining cards). However, nowadays people still don’t necessarily need to have the money to buy the things they want.
Who/what anchors the supply chain?
Jeff Haushalter, a Partner at Chicago Consulting, considers that the strain in the supply chain comes from higher than expected consumer demand, particularly during the holiday season. Other contributing factors are labor shortages in distribution centers and warehouses, rising oil prices, in-port congestion, and disruptions to supply caused by COVID-19.
Other key links in the supply chain are the trucking industry, which is short of tens of thousands of drivers, and ports, which are short of crane operators to unload vessels, causing ships to berth for longer while waiting for their turn. The provision of raw materials also depends on the supply chain and when these do not reach the producers, they cannot deliver the manufactured products and goods on time.
The COVID-19 lockdowns have increased consumer demand, thus creating constant changes that the supply chain has failed to keep up with, particularly recently. Severe weather events in Texas have caused plastic shortages and congestion in America’s second-largest container port – Los Angeles, poor container inventory in the global trade system, an energy crisis in China, and a fire at a chip producing factory in Japan have all created new obstacles.
In fact, several long-term trends and challenges have also contributed to generating conditions that have brought about this crisis. American companies have been moving their production abroad for decades which means that growing numbers of all the things that American consumers want to buy have to be imported. The deteriorating work conditions for truck drivers in recent years have caused this job to become incredibly unpopular even though the demand for drivers has increased as online shopping has become more accessible. Since Americans have used e-commerce more than ever during the pandemic, delivering products and goods to the door has become a challenge.
“We allowed supply chains to get away without having contingencies in place, resiliencies in place, and other measures to ensure humanity would never be subjected to this,” said Nick Vyas, Director of the Global Supply Chain Institute at the University of Southern California.
What’s to be done?
Amanda Mull, a staff writer at The Atlantic, in her article Stop Shopping, America needs you to buy less junk, states that Americans buy an extraordinary amount of things and the system has been shaken by increased demand. September imports were at a record high, surpassing the same period in 2019 by 17%. Many people buy things they simply do not need or even particularly want and in many cases will never use.
Mull interviewed Tim Kasser, Associate Professor of Psychology at Knox College, who has spent decades studying consumerism, and who stated that the word citizen has slowly been replaced by the word consumer in newspapers and books. Some people even believe that by shopping they can actively participate in politics by choosing to purchase from or boycott particular companies on the basis of their public stance on social issues.
“It’s becoming more and more a matter of default, to think of people as consumers instead of the countless other roles they play. The logic of the system requires people to come to believe that what’s important in life is to make a lot of money and to buy a lot of stuff. Once you do, it’s very difficult to change your beliefs,” Kasser stated in his interview. “Difficult – but not impossible. An honest appraisal of lives and values generally leads people to less materialism and more investment in their families and communities.”
