The holiday shopping season is on and early sales trends already seem to have exceeded estimates. US President Joe Biden earlier this week met with leaders of several major businesses in the country to discuss supply issues. Samsung America CEO Choi Kyung-sik was among the attendees at the White House meeting on Monday, The Korea Times reports.
Executives from retailers Best Buy and Kroger, grocery store chain Food Lion and Todos Supermarket, toy company Mattel, and several others also reportedly attended the high-profile meeting. Leaders of Walmart and CVS, meanwhile, appeared at the roundtable session virtually.
According to the report, Biden and the business leaders discussed efforts to tackle supply chain issues during this holiday shopping season. The tech industry is already fighting an unprecedented global semiconductor chip shortage. The issue is so widespread that it has delayed several product launches in recent months due to limited supply.
Measures are being put in place to mitigate similar issues in the future. But there seems no immediate way out of this situation as yet. President Biden may be concerned that other industries don’t run into such supply constraints. He also wants to ensure that products that are seeing higher demand are in enough stocks.
“The business leaders gathered here today represent a broad swath of American shopping,” Biden said. He enquired about how businesses have prepared to handle the sudden rise in shopping in these few weeks. “I want to hear from each of you about what you’re seeing this holiday season, how well prepared are you to have products you need on your shelves, and how you’ve innovated and hired to overcome these supply chain challenges you have.”
US President Joe Biden discusses efforts to tackle supply issues with business leaders
Online Black Friday sales were reportedly up almost a third this year as compared to last year. “In-store sales were up by even more than that,” said Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary. That’s despite the still-ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the new omicron variant of it. So quite clearly, people aren’t holding off their purchases this holiday season.
As such, President Joe Biden wants to make sure that there won’t be any supply issues in the coming weeks. He is also concerned about the rising US inflation, which reportedly hit a 31-year high in October. Hopefully, the government will put proper measures in place to ensure a smooth shopping season for everyone.
2021-12-03 04:32:30