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Local outdoor supply stores face a long road ahead of global supply chain issues

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BRYAN, TX — Many industries have faced a shortage in supplies due to a lack of production and distribution. Last summer stores selling all your outdoor recreational needs were able to keep businesses coming through the doors. Now with the lack of products, there are many unknowns for local businesses.

For these local shops selling all your outdoor activity needs is their main focus, but they still face global supply chain issues for another year and possibly longer.

“The latest thing that I'm hearing is that we maybe in this another couple of years,” said Robert Rose, local bicycle enthusiast.

“One of the brands we get out tents from their mainline tent won’t be coming back into stock until June of 2023,” said Emily Foreman, the assistant manager of Bear Mountain Outdoor.

When purchasing goods before it reaches the hands of the consumer it goes through a logistical circle of life.

Due to shortages of items needed to make products, employee shortages, and distribution routing issues. This has caused retailers to feel the effects and lack products to offer to consumers.

The Bear Mountain Outdoor in college station says when the pandemic first hit, they were more than happy to sell out, but things then took a turn for the worse once they realized manufacturers were unable to keep up with the demand.

“It’s a little daunting, usually we pre-season buy things almost a year in advance and now we’re kind of doing it at a week-by-week basis,” added Foreman.

The summer months generally entice outdoor adventures but many products are getting stuck on container ships creating roadblocks in distribution.

”The whole supply chain... The whole process of getting products made and shipped and into the warehouses ready for shipment has been curtailed,” added Rose.

"A lot of our brands were even switching basically their manufacturing completely to try to get products out faster," Foreman explained. "Changing the way they did things, so it created a lot of infrastructure problems on their end that kind of trickled down to us,”

The Bear Mountain outdoor currently has a limited supply of tents and shoes but is constantly searching for other brands to supply customers with what they need to enjoy the outdoors and shop local.

According to Outside Business Journal, COVID-19 safeguards have caused fewer workers in warehouses, on container ships, and truck drivers causing the limit on transporting goods.

According to the united states bureau of economic analysis, the impact of the pandemic on international trade of goods and services is still in the process of recovery. In March the deficit with China increased by 41 billion dollars.

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