Vestavia businesses dealing with shipping delays ahead of Black Friday

VESTAVIA HILLS, Ala. (WBRC) - Supply chain issues continue to be a problem heading into the holiday shopping season. It’s one of the busiest times of the year for Learning Express Toys in Cahaba Heights. And the store manager says they ordered toys way in advance this year knowing there could be supply chain issues.

“Our latest hurdle has been this past week, we haven’t received a FedEx shipment since last Tuesday,” Jessica Tedford said.

The delay means hundreds of packages that were supposed to be delivered by FedEx through a contractor, haven’t showed up yet.

Nearby businesses like The Lili Pad are having the same issues. They were told the contractor has dropped their route without any replacement.

“We have tracking on those that said they are here in Birmingham but we could not get in touch with anyone about where they were,” Tedford said.

Tedford and others have reached out to FedEx multiple times but feel they’re getting the run around.

After WBRC reached out to FedEx Tuesday, some of the toy store’s orders were finally delivered Wednesday. Some of the employees even made a Tik-Tok video out of it.

The businesses are counting on having products available for Black Friday sales that start in the next couple days.

“We’re a small business. These packages are our livelihood. A lot of these packages that are still outstanding we’re still receiving invoices from those that are going to come due. We need to be able to sell that product to pay those invoices,” Tedford said.

A FedEx spokesperson sent us this response:

“We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate our customers’ patience as contingency plans are implemented to address the temporary delays in the area. We encourage anyone with questions about their shipments to check back periodically with customer service through www.fedex.com”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE WBRC FOX6 NEWS APP

Copyright 2021 WBRC. All rights reserved.