"Gaps on the shelves at Christmas": retailers fear delivery problems until mid-2023

Three quarters of all German retailers complained about delivery bottlenecks in June.

"Gaps on the shelves at Christmas": retailers fear delivery problems until mid-2023

Three quarters of all German retailers complained about delivery bottlenecks in June. According to the IFO Institute, this can become a "permanent problem": The interruptions will last for almost a year, and bicycle and car dealers will be particularly affected. One reason might be congestion on container ships in China.

German retailers expect delivery problems to continue for a long time. On average, they assumed 11.5 months in June, according to a survey by the Munich IFO Institute. "The delivery problems have become a permanent problem for the retail trade," said IFO expert Klaus Wohlrabe. "This year, too, there will be gaps in the shelves at Christmas."

Bicycle dealers are hit the hardest. They assume that the bottlenecks will last the longest at 18 months. At the same time, 100 percent of the companies in this group stated that not all ordered goods could be delivered. In retail as a whole, this rate was 75.7 percent. This is a slight decrease compared to the previous month - in May it was still 80.1 percent.

Dealers of electrical household appliances are also particularly frequently affected by delivery problems with a good 98 percent, car dealers and hardware stores with a good 90 percent each, as well as consumer electronics and furniture with a good 88 percent each. The situation eased in the food trade: in May almost all companies were still complaining about bottlenecks. Now it was 77 percent. In the clothing trade, the share fell to 54 percent.

Grocery and clothing are also the two areas where the shortest duration of supply problems is expected at 8.2 and 9 months. After the bicycle trade, the longest bottlenecks are expected in the toy trade with 14 and electrical household appliances with 13.7 months.

One reason for the problems might be the congestion of container ships in the North Sea. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), more than two percent of global freight capacity is stuck there. The queue is also growing in front of the Chinese ports of Shanghai and Zhejiang - where corona lockdowns prevented loading and unloading for weeks: more than four percent of global freight capacity is stuck here. China is by far Germany's most important trading partner: in 2021, goods worth 245 billion euros were sent back and forth.