View
comments
Parents are being warned of toy shortages this Christmas as companies are hit hard by crippling supply chain issues - including a lack of HGV drivers and severe congestion at trading ports.
With less than 100 days until December 25, giants including John Lewis have chartered extra ships in a bid to secure more products while high street favourites like Waterstones have ordered more stock than usual - and earlier - in a bid to get ahead of the crunch.
It comes as the London Toy Company said the time taken to get its products from a factory in the Far East to its warehouse in Essex had doubled.
Meanwhile, due to an ongoing shortage in Asia, the cost of containers has soared tenfold.
The retailer warned that price rises will be inevitable, reported BBC Radio 4, while the Toy Retailers Association said shoppers may struggle to find the goods they would expect to come December.
It comes after the chief commercial officer of the The Entertainer Geoff Sheffield urged parents Thursday to be prepared if they wanted to avoid disappointment.
He told Good Morning Britain (GMB) how demand for shipping containers started soaring at the start of the pandemic, due to the global need for PPE equipment.
'Since then, we've never
