"After two pandemic years of stocking up on stuff – desk, chair,
bookshelf, dresses, blender, knives – Rachel Premack is now all about
travel and saving what she can. Last year, she had the stimulus dollars
and nowhere to go; now, she's got weddings and family visits and worries
about rising prices.

This, on a nationwide scale, became the recipe for a whole new problem
for some U.S. stores: a glut of inventory.

"It is just a really bizarre back and forth kind of situation," says
Premack, who has followed all this as an editorial director at the
logistics outlet FreightWaves. "Inventory managers at major big box
stores don't even know how to navigate what's happening anymore, they
are just exhausted."

Big box stores like Target and Walmart are particularly working through
an excess of certain items.

Target has specifically named TVs, kitchen appliances, outdoor
furniture, electronics and fitness supplies, with the CEO saying the
chain did not anticipate "the magnitude" of the spending shift from
goods to services. Some clothing stores, too, such as Gap, got stuck
with too many hoodies and athleisure as office workers quickly jumped
back into suits and dresses.

"If you think about it, [stores are] ordering goods three, six, even
nine months in advance," said Mark Mathews, vice president of research development and industry analysis at the National Retail Federation.
"Retailers base their forecasting on historical behavior. But there is
no template for what consumer behavior looks like coming out of a
pandemic.""
[snip]

"In the next few weeks, new data will show how long this inventory glut
might last, said Jason Miller, who tracks retail inventories and sales
at Michigan State University. Initial evidence suggests the retailers
with bloated inventories are already starting to get things under control.

Still, importers continue bringing in near record-high amounts of goods
to the U.S., he said. That's because even though last year's shopping
frenzy has slowed, Miller said, people are still buying more products
than they did before the pandemic."

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/25/1112945860/retailers-inventory-glut-pandemic

TB

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