Parents-to-be Experience Long Waits for Baby Product Necessities

By Yehudit Garmaise

Just as a wide variety of consumer goods have been piling up at major ports, due to COVID-related worker shortages in factories, warehouses, and in ships that have had to wait weeks to dock, baby items like cribs, car seats, and strollers are no different. As a result, many expectant parents have been seeing long, frustrating delays for crucial baby gear that is also now harder to find and more expensive. Some baby necessities, for instance, that used to arrive with eight to 10 weeks of ordering them, now sometimes take at least twice as long to be delivered, the New York Times reported. Some sellers say the pandemic has created a lack of raw materials and shipping containers, but also port delays, trucker shortages, and other logistical challenges. Maisonette, an online baby marketplace that works with approximately 1,000 vendors, reported that the product delays are mostly coming from Asia and Peru, whose workers create the Pima cotton that is used for many brands of clothing for babies. While pre-pandemic, the normal production of customer favorites that were made overseas typically took only 12 days to ship to California ports, from where they would be unloaded and distributed by a vast American trucking system, now American distributors are waiting months just for the items to be shipped to the US. Unlike other consumer goods whose delivery has been delayed, of course, newborn items are needed by specific due dates, which has led to higher prices and a robust market in used baby products.

photo: flicker