Where Are the Toys?

Whether it’s sneakers, gaming systems, or a favorite toy, many popular holiday gifts are a lot harder to find this year. A worldwide shipping crisis is leading to shortages of all kinds of products—during the busiest shopping season of the year.

Why are shoppers seeing more empty shelves? It has a lot to do with the global supply chain. That’s the process of getting products made in one country to consumers in another country. 

For many of the products Americans use, the chain starts in factories in Asia. Those products are placed into shipping containers that are stacked onto massive cargo ships (see sidebar, below). 

The ships sail across the Pacific Ocean to ports in the U.S. There, the containers are loaded onto trucks or trains. All the products are eventually delivered to stores or shipped directly to people who bought them online.

The current shipping crisis can be traced to the Covid-19 pandemic. While stuck at home, most Americans didn’t spend money on vacations or movie tickets. Instead, they bought more of the things they could use at home—like board games, bikes, and exercise equipment. Through September, the U.S. had imported more than $900 billion in goods from Asia this year. 

The surge in demand has clogged up several steps in the supply chain. The two busiest container ports in the U.S. are in Los Angeles and Long Beach, California. Since the summer, they’ve been the scene of a huge traffic jam as dozens of cargo ships wait to unload their containers. The problems don’t end there. There’s also a nationwide shortage of truck drivers, so thousands of full containers sit on docks waiting to be picked up. 

These delays could mean many people will have to wait until next year to get the items on their holiday wish lists.