Steve Denton has finished his holiday shopping. The chief executive of Ware2Go, a UPS-backed company whose technology helps merchants find warehouse space, always browses for presents ahead of time, but his inside view of retail supply chains has given him more reason to finish early this year.
Resurgent consumer demand is feeding hopes of a far stronger season for US retailers in 2021 after Covid-19 disrupted factories, scrambled distribution networks and kept wary shoppers at home last year. Deloitte expects holiday sales to jump 7 per cent to 9 per cent above the 2020 level, to $1.3tn.
Yet that demand is further straining supply chains, leaving both merchants and customers concerned they might not secure the products they want. That means that this second pandemic holiday is starting far before Black Friday, the late-November date on which the Christmas crush traditionally begins.