Beginning back in October/November last year, there was a sudden spike of delayed board game releases. Lots of suppliers and distributors were telling me that they don’t expect games originally planned for a release before Christmas to become available before February/March 2021.
The reason for this: clogged up ports and a lack of shipping capacity. Clogged up parts were caused by a stocking up for the Christmas period and to prevent stock shortages in the weeks immediately after Brexit. But why a shortage on capacity and what is the effect on the board game industry?
Tony Mastrangeli from Boardgamequest.com has looked into this and contacted factories, fulfilment companies and publisher to see what they make of the situation. The article he has written helps to understand why there are so many delays at the moment. His conclusion is that we will have to live with this situation for a couple of months longer until things will calm down after Chinese New Year.
Most people I talked to aren’t expecting things to start easing up until after the Chinese New Year in February. The perfect storm of holiday product demand, COVID affecting every part of the world, manufacturing backlogs, and country lockdowns have put a massive strain on the world’s largest manufacturing country.
(Source: Boardgamequest.com article)