If you're in the market for a new laptop during the COVID-19 crisis, you're most likely out of luck. Empty shelves which used to stock tablets and laptops are bare at stores like Target and Walmart across Memphis.
It's not just Memphis seeing a shortage of electronic devices usually used for work or entertainment, as Americans find themselves at home responding to office emails and students finishing out the semester at the kitchen table.
Even the broadcast news industry has packed up shop and taken the show home. Broadcasters from morning talk to cable network news are coming to audiences live or recorded by mobile phone, tablet or laptop.
Forced isolation brought on by coronavirus has resulted in virtual connection to family, friends, coworkers and classmates that only our electronic communications devices can provide.
If you don't have one it could be weeks before you get one. A survey by an electronics trade group back in February found electronics manufacturers were expecting delays four to five weeks.
Here we are and the laptop I ordered nearly a week ago with promised free 2-day delivery has yet to be shipped. Verizon like nearly all electronics carriers are informing customers backlogs on devices as a result of the global pandemic.
While many electronics are made in the United States, manufacturers rely on parts built in China where the workforce was brought to almost a complete halt by the COVID-19 outbreak months ago.
China's coronavirus cases and deaths may have reached a plateau, but manufacturers fear its effects could cause further delays in production and deliveries.
A survey shows 65% of manufacturers were told by suppliers in China, back in early March, to expect three week delays in necessary parts. Those predictions weeks ago from China have resulted in rows of empty laptop shelves in Memphis. The question nobody can answer is how long will it be before all those back-orders of laptops are filled.
