How Amazon and Walmart get around the disruptions
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Illustration: Peter and Maria Hoey
 
Dear reader,
When supply chain disruptions strike, it’s hard for retailers to get their stores stocked the way they want. That’s why we see empty shelves or products on back-order. But it’s easier if you’re big enough to charter your own ship and pick up the goods yourself.

Most companies can’t do that. But Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot, and a few others can, and have. Retail giants have expanded their logistics operations and struck deals with suppliers, allowing them to get goods faster than their competitors. In this way, the supply chain crisis has further widened the gap between the biggest and smallest companies in our economy.

Journalist Rose Adams breaks this down in our latest article for our special issue, How We Broke the Supply Chain, finding that the rapidly consolidating market has broad implications: workers earn less, communities lose key services, and despair spreads. The smaller businesses that manage to stick around pay more for goods, since suppliers can’t raise prices on the big guys without risking the loss of their business. This increases inflation across the economy.
You can read Rose Adams’s important story here.
The story is part of our special issue, which explains how bad policies created the disaster that is causing shortages and raising costs. You can read all of the stories at
prospect.org/supplychain
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David Dayen, Executive Editor
The American Prospect
 
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