Lululemon CEO On Supply Chain Crisis: Consumers 'Should Shop Early' For Holiday Gifts

Lululemon Athletica Inc LULU CEO Calvin McDonald has become the latest corporate leader to warn that the supply chain crisis could disrupt the holiday shopping season.

What Happened: Speaking at the Oct. 25 Yahoo Finance’s All Markets Summit, McDonald said the Vancouver-headquartered athletic apparel maker is bypassing the oceanic bottleneck of freighter ships waiting to get into ports and is using more air freight flights for transporting merchandise from overseas; roughly 30% of Lululemon’s products are sourced from Vietnam.

“We're confident we'll have the inventory to support the revenue that we've guided to, but there's definitely missed opportunity as a result of the supply chain disruptions,” McDonald said. “I wouldn't want people to think that we're satisfying every demand that we have, but the team is doing a wonderful job getting the product here to meet the guidance numbers.”

McDonald stated his company did not anticipate “supply issues” ahead of the holiday shopping season, predicting Lululemon will have its Mirror wall-mounted device for streaming workouts in 200 of its 500 stores globally by Black Friday and will be able to launch its patented sneaker line in early 2022.

Still, McDonald urged holiday-focused consumers not to leave anything to chance, adding, “I do think guests should shop early.”

Related Link: Beringer Capital Acquires Majority Stake In Benzinga: What You Need To Know

What Else Happened: Also sharing the stage at Yahoo's summit with McDonald was Target Corporation TGT CEO Brian Cornell, who said his company chartered its own cargo ship to bring merchandise to its 1,900 stores and distribution centers.

But Cornell warned the supply chain crisis will not be resolved before the holidays, predicting, “I think this is going to take quite a bit of time to sort out.”

Jeremy Nixon, CEO of freight company Ocean Network Express, told the Financial Times that the U.S. could experience a significantly prolonged supply chain disruption beyond next year's holiday season if contract negotiations scheduled in the spring between dockworkers and terminal operators become bogged down.

"If we get a bad jam up in July, August, and September of 2022 in North America that could well last late into 2022 and early 2023," said Nixon, whose company transports more than 6% of the world's containerized freight on a 220-vessel fleet.

Photo: Pxfuel.