Supply Chain Research

America’s Christmas tree shortage raises the risk of a less festive holiday season, the Wall Street Journal reports. At the same time imports of holiday decorations came close to breaking a more-than-seven year run if growth in 2017. As it is Panjiva data shows that imports in the six months through November 30 (including preliminary seaborne data for the month of November) likely increased by 2.3% on a year earlier.

Chart compares the dollar value of winter holiday decorations and lights (blue) to seaborne shipments (orange). Source: Panjiva

While the shortage of trees is a legacy of farm failures late in the last decade, the growth in decorations is solely the result of a later-than-previously arrival of shipments in October and November. Shipments in August and September, the usual peak months, were 1.1% and 0.5% worse than a year earlier.

However imports in October and November were 10.0% and 37.7% higher. That shift has been seen in other products, including toys as outlined in Panjiva research of November 13, likely reflecting more efficiency supply-chain practices from retailers.

Chart segments imports of winter holiday decorations and lights by month. Source: Panjiva

As with toys, U.S. imports are dominated by exports from China. The U.S. is also the single largest market for Chinese exporters at 44.7% of shipments in the third quarter ahead of Europe (29.6%).

Chart segments exports of holiday decorations and lights from China by destination market. Source: Panjiva