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Christmas at Risk as Supply Chain ‘Disaster’ Only Gets Worse

Stock prices of retailers are near all-time highs. Global trade is a mess, and peak shipping has just begun.

By

Matthew Townsend,

Jordyn Holman, and

Eliza Ronalds-Hannon

October 4, 2021, 4:00 AM UTC

Video player cover image — The Supply Chain Crunch Could Ruin Christmas for Retailers

It’s the beginning of October, just the start of what the retail world simply calls “peak.” But the industry is already in various forms of panic that usually don’t take hold until the weeks before Christmas.

Early in the year, the hope was that the bottlenecks that gummed up the global supply chain in 2020 would be mostly cleared by now. They’ve actually only gotten worse — much worse — and evidence is mounting that the holiday season is at risk.