We’ve been asked a few times and we know it’s frustrating so we thought we’d give you all an update on the state of play and some background to the delays that we are all feeling at the moment.

Outside of suppliers (mentioning no names!) over-selling/under-supplying many figures, there are other factors that have caused huge delays for many retailers across all sectors.

Suez Canal

Some of you may have seen the news about the Suez Canal, the main route for vessels from East to West, which was blocked for 6 days in March. It created a backlog of nearly 400 container vessels that didn’t start clearing until mid-April. Some vessels were forced to re-route around Africa which adds further to the delays. Although this is now cleared, there is still some fallout filtering through.

COVID

For us in the UK, COVID seems to be easing with more and more restrictions lifting and life starting to return to normal. Unfortunately, the rest of the world and the transport industries are still suffering. Social distancing is having a huge impact on the number of staff able to work in all environments, whether this is factories producing toys, shipping agents, distributors or ports. Ultimately, there are less people trying to do the same amount of work.

COVID has also seen air freight reduced to almost zero with the shipping industry having to pick up the slack. UK ports in particular are backed up! Imagine a traffic jam. Made of massive container ships. It’s a mess! Some container ships are by transferred to other ports, such as Copenhagen, where their shipments are being transported by road. Unfortunately, converting hundreds of containers from one vessel into hundreds of trucks takes a massive amount of time.

Although everyone hopes to see this ease up, the next 6 months is still at the mercy of COVID and the backlogs could take a while to clear.

When will stuff arrive?

We are constantly seeking updates from our suppliers and we pass these on whenever we receive them. Unfortunately, many of our suppliers are kept in the dark and sometimes have little information to pass on. We will try and keep you updated as best we can and please get in touch if you’d like any information.

Currently, we have shipments arriving each week, although we don’t know what’s there until we crack open the boxes!

As always, a huge thank you from us for your patience and for choosing the Jedi Archives!

One day, this will pass and the world will be back to normal!

MTFBWY.