Holiday shoppers navigate shortages with mixed results
NEW YORK (AP) — Like many shoppers, Kathleen Webber understands the struggles of getting the right gifts for her three children this holiday shopping season amid widespread shortages.
She promised to buy her 23-year-old son the Sony Corp. PlayStation 5, but he hasn't been able to get his hands on the popular game console. So now Webber says she may have to get him the next best thing — a used smart phone.
“I just don't know where to get one," the Yardley, Pennsylvania resident said of the PS5. “It's like the Tickle Me Elmos" from 1996.
The holidays have always been defined by disappointing out-of-stock messages on the most popular items. But the pandemic-induced supply chain snarls have created unprecedented shortages across all types of products, from the chips that go into gaming consoles to more mundane items like ties and pajamas.
That has many customers buying early as shortfalls are only expected to worsen as the holiday season moves into the final stretch.
Some shoppers like Danny Groner aren’t being choosy.
When Groner realized he needed a new tie for a wedding in early December, he found the perfect answer on Amazon: a $7.99 skinny black and white tie that he was told would arrive in time.
But four days later, he received an email message informing him the tie was out of stock and it wouldn’t arrive until January. That sent the New York publicist into a fit of desperation and forced him to go back on the site for any tie that would meet the fast approaching deadline.
“It didn’t matter to me whether it was ugly — it got here," says Groner, who settled on a yellow and blue checkered tie.
On Cyber Monday — the biggest online shopping day of the year — the prevalence of out-of-stock messages rose 8% compared to a week earlier, according to Adobe Digital Economy...
