It’s a matter of fact that nearly all industries are being faced with several problems ever since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether it is delays in receiving goods, orders having to be cancelled due to unknown ETA’s, or price increases for raw materials or freight (which is a big one), we’re all experiencing the effects.

We’ve done our best to be on top of our inventory, but clearly the pandemic caught all of us off-guard. Not only that, but due to mandatory business shutdowns in efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19, it has put some of TEIN’s materials suppliers behind on manufacturing and, in turn, has put us behind on manufacturing.

TEIN Japan and TEIN China facilities were back to running nearly non-stop just to keep up with demands, and even with price increase on raw materials and freight, we’ve decided to hold off on passing the expenses down to you, our customer. But even then, this isn’t without it’s hiccups.

Again, I mention freight being a big factor in slowing us down. Not just the importation of our goods from Japan and China, but all intermodal freight. It seems that either there isn’t enough manpower for the day-to-day operations, or these freight forwarders are also facing severe pricing increases, such as fuel and operational costs, that cause companies to halt shipments. Everything is being affected.

This isn’t a post regarding bad news of a price increase. Rather, it’s a post to let you, our patient customers, know that we’re doing everything possible to try to get the products to you as soon as is humanly possible. So, we ask kindly that you please hang on just a bit longer, and know that we, as well as our authorized dealers and distributors, are doing the best they can to get you the products you want.

Here are some lovely pictures from the past couple of months of how the Port of Long Beach looks, with container ship after container ship just anchored out at sea.

Out there, in that mass of over 100 ships, are a few of our containers awaiting to be unloaded. Hang in there, guys. We’ll get our hands on your products soon.