Retail numbers in September surprised Wall Street with a positive uptick instead of the negative numbers expected. But this good news has been tempered in the past week alone by Amazon’s slide, coupled with Apple’s warning about how chip shortages will adversely affect their numbers in the coming quarters.
Amazon’s numbers showed that the retail side of its business lost money in the third quarter because of shortages in both labor and consumer goods. The Information noted that Apple forecast a “bigger impact on its revenue from chip shortages” and Snap “predicted that an advertiser pullback due to product shortages would worsen in the fourth quarter.” Clearly, the ripple effects of the supply chain disruptions are causing problems across the board.
Retailers unanimously agreed that consumers should expect holiday shopping to be affected by supply chain disruptions and inflation in a recent survey First Insight fielded in partnership with the Baker Retailing Center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Furthermore, nearly all agreed that disruptive supply chain issues will continue to roil the retail sector through 2022 and beyond.
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