Why Your Orders are Still Taking So Long to Arrive

Amber RandhawaHomeowner and Homebuyer Tips

Photo Credit: Paul Teysen @hooverpaul55

Since shortly after the Coronavirus pandemic began, we’ve been constantly hearing about supply chain issues and labor shortages, and we have gotten used to many of the items we order taking much longer than usual to arrive at our doorsteps. And while most of the items we need from the supermarket are now in stock, random outages persist and holes in otherwise fully stocked shelves remain.

Perhaps one of the most frustrating ways the ongoing labor and supply chain issues affect us is when we need to furnish a new home, or make upgrades to our existing homes. You can put together the perfect custom appliance package on a store’s website or in the showroom, only to find out that the items will not arrive for several weeks if not months. Or one piece may arrive quickly while you are left waiting for the rest of the package. Similarly, you can design a couch or other piece of furniture with your precise specifications, but you may be waiting quite a while to get to actually see the piece of furniture in your home.

These situations are ongoing sources of frustration. As we head into the third year of the global pandemic, many people are wondering if this is the new normal. Here is a look at some of the reasons behind these ongoing delays.


Order Backlogs

Photo Credit: Jake Nebov @jaken

When you place an order for something like an appliance or piece of furniture, you likely expect that it is has already been manufactured and is sitting in a warehouse waiting to be shipped out. Or if it is a made-to-order piece, you at least might think that as soon as you place your order, the machines start to crank up and your item will be next in line for production. For those items that were only created once ordered, you probably assumed a fully stocked warehouse on site contained everything needed to make your item, from start to finish.

In a pre-Covid world, all of these scenarios were likely to be the case. However, when the pandemic began, many production facilities were shuttered for weeks or months, and when they opened, they still faced frequent shutdowns in production due to employees being out sick. Still other factories had to scale down production due to the amount of their staff that chose not to return. And those warehouses full of parts and supplies? With fewer trucking companies able to operate at full speed, the parts required to assemble anything from a dishwasher to a bed frame might not be on hand when needed.


The good news is that many factories are now operating at close to pre-pandemic speed, and while the shipping industry has not completely caught up, parts are arriving at manufacturing facilities while finished products are shipping out for order fulfillment. Unfortunately, this does not mean that something you order today will be ready to ship to your home immediately. All of the orders that were placed during shutdowns and shortages still have to be fulfilled, and any order you place today will be in line behind those already waiting.

Customized Items Take Even Longer

Photo Credit: Kam Idris @ka_idris

People who order luxury items are used to customizing their pieces to their own unique needs and lifestyles. This may mean carefully selecting the tasks you need your refrigerator to perform, or designing a chair and ottoman that reflect your personality, while looking perfect in one exact location in your home. There is a downside to this bespoke process though, in the form of long lead times. This has become even more apparent recently, as orders for non-customized items are seen as “low hanging fruit,” meaning that manufacturers will fulfill these orders first when possible. So your customizations will not only take longer due to a lack of raw materials in the warehouse, but because your order will likely get kicked farther down the list.


Underestimating Demand

Photo Credit: Amanda Smith @asmithphotos

The owners and managers of factories that closed their doors at the beginning of the pandemic all mostly thought that demand would fall along with production. This belief that the closures would balance with lowered demand made sense, as many of us felt like the economy would suffer during the pandemic. But lo and behold, the exact opposite occurred. As people spent more time in their homes, they saw items that needed to be replaced. They spent hours of boredom shopping online and customizing products. Orders piled up while factory doors were closed.

There was also a belief among many in the real estate industry that home sales would suffer during the pandemic. We now know that this very much was not the case. People realized they could work many jobs remotely, enabling them to work from anywhere. This change in the way we work inspired droves of Americans to move to other cities since their jobs no longer tied them to one particular place. And all of those new homes needed to be furnished.


Between bored home design shoppers ordering new furnishings and new home buyers needing to fill up empty rooms, orders piled up higher and higher while factories were either closed or operating at a fraction of their full capacity. Now that we are two years into the pandemic, most facilities are no longer facing occasional closures, but they are still fighting an uphill battle to fulfill all of their built up orders. At the same time, demand never really subsided and new orders continue to come in.

Some Materials Still Hard to Come Find

Photo Credit: Marissa Daeger @marissadaeger

Shortages that began at the beginning of the pandemic are still continuing. Wood and metal continue to be hot commodities both for new home builders and furniture manufacturers leaving these two industries competing for many of the same goods. The lumber mills cannot keep up with the demand coming from both of the industries, causing a ripple effect that can be felt across the whole industry worldwide. Most high-end furniture manufactures have impeccably high quality standards, and they are simply not able to make substitutions for the type and quality of wood they need to create their products. This leaves no quick solution to their supply problems.

Another item that can be hard to find by many industries right now is foam, the unsung hero of the furniture industry, particularly for couches and other seating components. A single couch can be made up of a dozen different types of foam, and many of these types are sourced from states along the Gulf Coast. Weather hazards have further delayed production and transport from these area. In normal years a hurricane or ice storm wouldn’t affect an entire industry, but when these events are coupled with the already pandemic-strained shipping system, they can have a major effect.

International Transport Issues

Photo Credit: Barrett Ward @scrumpykid

While the foam inside your couch likely came from somewhere in the southeastern United States, the fabric covering it probably came from somewhere in Asia. This part of the globe has experienced severe shipment delays to the United States, worsening throughout the pandemic. Wholesale products sourced from Asian countries are often moved on cargo ships in shipping containers. Once a stock of fabric has made it through customs and onto a shipping container, it faces a long boat ride to a United States port. In simpler times the process of unloading from the container would go smoothly and quickly, but not anymore. You’ve likely heard mention of the many congested receiving ports across the country, where ships face lengthy delays to park and unload, and then containers sit idle waiting to be moved further by train or truck. The trucking industry in particular has been overwhelmed with shipping demand as well as limited by available workers.


Worker Shortages

Whether it is the people who work in manufacturing of your furniture and appliances, the construction workers who build our houses, or the truck drivers who transport raw materials and finished goods, the overall workforce in the United States has drastically suffered over the past couple of years. While companies spent time completely closed, many of their employees not only quit, but left the manufacturing and transportation industries completely. Others returned to work, but due to pandemic related reasons, continued to take frequent time off. Early on this was due largely to illnesses in their own family, and lack of childcare when schools were shuttered and virtual learning made having a parent at home almost a necessity.

It’s a simple fact that when there are fewer people available to work, less work can be done. These smaller teams have caused lead times to become longer, especially for custom orders. Delivery time frames are becoming less reliable as well, because it is often hard to know for sure how quickly an order can be completed and how long it will take to be delivered. If you need custom installation, you may be waiting even longer. Contractors and skilled laborers are in high demand while also being in short supply, and it can be difficult to schedule their services.