Recently, according to Wall Street reports, the American furniture manufacturing industry is facing serious logistics bottlenecks.

"We finally recovered production and produced furniture, but the logistics company said they couldn't come because they didn't have a truck to help us deliver the goods." said Rob Spilman Jr., CEO of Bassett Furniture Company based in Virginia, USA. "We also don't have enough staff in our retail stores to unload the goods, which in turn led us and other companies to plan to reduce production."

He said that insufficient warehouse space, labor and truck shortages have prevented manufacturers from trying to reduce the backlog of orders. And now, Bassett's backlog of orders is 7 times the level before the epidemic.

Moreover, furniture chains including Bassett, La-Z-Boy Inc. and Room & Board Inc. are struggling to deal with supply chain issues including rising freight and material costs. In order to increase production, manufacturers have been increasing shifts and looking for new alternative materials, such as wood used to make sofa frames.

Congestion in the supply chain limits Bassett's ability to benefit from the US economic recovery. The company reported sales of $124.1 million in the second quarter, an increase of 94% year-on-year, but Spilman believes that "formula sales should be much higher if our supply chain and logistics conditions are normalized."

Similar pressures are affecting the entire supply chain. As the US economy heats up due to strong consumer and industrial demand, it is difficult for logistics and warehousing providers to recruit distribution workers.

According to statistics from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics on July 2, warehouse operators added 13,600 jobs in June, which is the industry's largest monthly increase since November last year.