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Customers in a furniture store: "The specialist trade does everything in its power to deliver the goods ordered to the customer"
Photo: Henning Kaiser / dpa
The furniture and kitchen trade association (BVDM) warns of rising prices and longer waiting times in view of delivery bottlenecks. "If the shortage of goods and delivery difficulties persist, there may be further price increases," said managing director Christian Haeser. "We are already seeing an average price increase of up to ten percent on certain articles." In the case of blatant disruptions in the supply chain, longer waiting times are unavoidable.
According to the trade association, the corona pandemic has been affecting raw material procurement and prices as well as the ability to deliver goods for months.
Container ships lay in front of cargo ports around the world, waiting to be unloaded.
When the goods were on land, the problems continued: In many countries, the transport logistics did not run smoothly due to overstaffing.
This leads to further delays.
The high freight prices, in turn, resulted mainly from the shortage and lack of availability of containers.
"Companies from the manufacturing and manufacturing industries to sales are being slowed down all over the world," the association said.
In view of this difficult delivery situation, the mood in the furniture trade is very tense.
Kitchen furniture is currently readily available, but built-in electrical appliances are hardly available.
This in turn affects the delivery time for the entire kitchen.
"The specialist trade does everything in its power to deliver the goods ordered to the customer," said Haeser.
Investments are currently being made in logistics for this purpose.
The delivery bottlenecks in large parts of the economy have driven consumer prices up in Germany.
At 5.2 percent, the inflation rate is currently at its highest level in almost 30 years.
However, many experts expect the situation to ease in the coming year.
dab / Reuters
