American Retailers are Overstocked
Source：New York Times
From：Taiwan Trade Center, Chicago
Update Time：2022/08/30
American Retailers are Overstocked
American retailers can’t sell their inventory fast enough. As Americans are easing back into post pandemic life and American spending declines, retailers are feeling the pressure of unsold merchandise. The New York Time reports, a giant, liquidation warehouse in northeastern Pennsylvania is leaden with items consumers were buying up during the pandemic. Bikes, backyard patio furniture, and at home pizza ovens are all being sold to this Pennsylvania liquidation company at severely discounted prices.
The warehouse offers a window into a reckoning across the retail industry and the broader economy: After a two-year binge of consumer spending — fueled by government checks and the ease of e-commerce — a nasty hangover is taking hold.
As a whole, consumers are cutting down on discretionary purchases because of high inflation. Shoppers are buying less clothing, gardening equipment and electronics and focusing instead on basics like food and gas that have risen in price in recent months.
What has also become clear, retailers misjudged supply and demand. Experts claim part of this miscalculation is from supply chain delays. At risk of not having enough inventory, retailers over stocked their shelves, buying items long in advance.
“It is surprising to me on some level that we saw all that surge of buying activity and we weren’t collectively able to see that it was going to end at some point,” J.D. Daunt, chief commercial officer at Liquidity Services, said in an interview at the Pennsylvania warehouse earlier this month. “You would think that there would be enough data and enough history to see that a little more clearly,” he added. “But it also suggests that times are changing and they are changing fast and more dramatically.”
Apart from economic impact of this type of fluctuation in consumerism, there are environmental impacts as well. Liquidators say they offer a more environmentally responsible option by finding new buyers and markets for unwanted products, both those that were returned and those that were never bought in the first place. “We are reducing the carbon footprint,” said Tony Sciarrotta, executive director of the Reverse Logistics Association, the industry trade group. “But there is still too much going to landfills.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/30/business/retail-returns-liquidation.html