What Happens When Your Egg Basket Breaks?

摘要

By now, you've read, heard and seen just about every permutation about the coronavirus pandemic crisis and how it's going to change everything. And indeed, it will change many things, although exactly how many and for what duration remains largely a matter of interpretation. Whatever your line of work, you will do it in a different way than you used to. For the home textiles business, perhaps one of the most fundamental changes will be in how it obtains its products. The double whammy of the Trump Tariff fiasco and the pandemic have dealt business-as-usual a death knell unlike anything it has ever seen. It's why every company in the industry needs to be rethinking its supply chain process and it needs to almost start from scratch. Which is not to say you aren't going to end up in many of the same places for your supply. Let's face it, there are not an unlimited number of resources who can produce the container-sized loads that American retailers both need and demand. And this is not going to mean any wholesale - literally - return of home textiles manufacturing back to the U.S. Reshoring is a nice concept for politicians to talk about and a few small players to work at, but it's not a widespread solution to the situation. That ship has - also literally - sailed.