Friend said Indonesian factories are now fully operational, but Vietnam production is not set to start until next month. Already, he said, the Vietnam closures account for 10 weeks of lost production.

Nike is far from the only company to face supply chain disruptions due to a surge in Delta variant cases in Vietnam. US executives overseeing the production of goods ranging from clothing to furniture have recently discussed moving operations back into China to avoid government lockdowns.

What does this mean for my Nike orders?

Like nearly all retailers preparing for the holiday shopping season, Nike is anticipating delays due to backlogs in global shipping. In recent weeks record numbers of container ships have piled up at US ports, and the footwear company now says it takes double the time to deliver goods from Asia to North America as it did before the pandemic.

Nike has shifted away from selling to in-store retailers in recent years and saw an acceleration in online sales during the first months of the pandemic, Zuccaro noted. The company said demand on its SNKRS app, which offers limited release products, grew by 130% over this last quarter. But even as Nike continues to roll out new sneakers in the coming weeks, customers shouldn’t expect to get their hands on these items easily.

These constraints could last well past the holiday season. Nike said it expects demand to outstrip supply until the end of its fiscal year in May 2022.

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