Significantly Improved Manufacturing Conditions in China
4/29/2022
I’m happy to share that manufacturing conditions in China have improved materially in the last week. As of Monday, 100% of Pop! Promos’ factories are running at full speed and we are back to our standard production times on every product in our line.
Air freight networks are working through a backlog from the closure of Shanghai Airport but are generally functioning normally with a 2-3 day delay.
The Pop! Promos team is standing by to support your projects with over 85 different products in our line at quantities ranging from 250 to 500,000 pieces. Try out our award-winning FREE Virtuals or request a sample of our latest product, a full-color Recycled Canvas Fanny Pack made from RPET (made with 6 recycled water bottles).
Sincerely,
Sterling Wilson
President, Pop! Promos
Pop! Promos Navigates COVID Closures in China
4/12/2022
Pop! Promos continues to deliver for its customers and meet its guarantees, despite government imposed COVID closures in China as that country struggles to contain COVID Omicron with its “Zero COVID” policy.
As you’ve likely seen in the news, China has imposed strict controls on travel, in-person work, and public gatherings to prevent the spread of COVID 19. These “lockdowns” have generally been geographically targeted at specific neighborhoods or even city blocks where COVID cases have been identified. The restrictions typically require people to stay at home except for a weekly grocery run for 7-10 days to stop disease transmission.
Over the last 30 days, these government implemented controls have included shutdowns of a dozen of our factories and sub suppliers as well as disruptions to our logistics networks for both intra-country transport and export services to the USA. Despite these challenges I’m proud to share that Pop! Promos continues to deliver an industry-leading 97% of our client’s orders on time. We attribute this success to the resiliency and flexibility we’ve built into our supply chain over the last 10 years. For example, when mandatory factory closures shuttered two of our top sock suppliers in China and blocked export services from that region, we were able to ship finished goods to another province for export using local logistics carriers and were able to produce new orders to our factories in India for uninterrupted production.
At Pop! Promos, we expect further disruptions across China in the coming weeks. We also expect that we will continue to delivery our goods on time at industry-leading rates, proactively communicate any challenges to our clients, and work as a partner on any orders with delivery issues while standing behind our guarantee.
Sincerely,
Sterling Wilson
President, Pop! Promos
Normal Operations are Resuming
3/22/2022
As we continue to closely monitor the Covid situation in China as it concerns our factory partners, sub-suppliers and our logistics networks, we’re happy to report some good news: all of our sub-suppliers in Southern China have been given the green light to reopen and resume normal operations.
While major shipping carriers in a few locations have yet to resume normal operations, Pop! Promos continues to use inland trucking services to move goods to alternate airports and logistics hubs to export your orders uninterrupted and on time.
As always, we will continue to monitor the situation daily and communicate if we foresee any potential issues that might affect our production or delivery times.
Sincerely,
Sterling Wilson
President, Pop! Promos
China’s ZERO COVID Policy meets Omicron
3/17/2022
As you likely know, China has implemented a very aggressive policy to stop the spread of COVID-19 within the country. The practical reasons for this policy are pretty straightforward; China has high population density (over 100 cities with 1M+ ppl, the USA has 10), relatively low vaccination rates using vaccines that are not effective against Omicron, and fewer hospital beds per capita than most developed countries. This policy has been in effect for over two years and the effects have been remarkable. According to the WHO, the USA has had about 650 times as many Covid cases as China (USA 81,000,000 cases vs China 123,000 cases) since the pandemic began, despite having a population less than ¼ of China’s.
Starting early this week, we started to receive news from our manufacturing partners in Southern China that COVID-19 restrictions were affecting their operations. Contrary to news reports I’ve been seeing in the US press, these restrictions and lockdowns have been extremely tactical and focused on discrete city districts and neighborhoods where COVID testing is indicating community transmission of the virus.
As of today we have seen the following effects from these work and travel restrictions:
- Suspension of international logistics services out of some regions in South China affecting two or our factories.
- One of our factories is located in a region experiencing mandatory business closures.
- One of our factories has a sub-supplier located in a region experiencing mandatory business closures.
Fortunately for Pop! Promos and our clients, we’ve adopted an agile mindset and build a tremendous amount of flexibility and redundancy into our supply chain that we’re using to address these limited issues in the following ways:
- Arranging for inland trucking services to move goods to alternate airports and logistics hubs to continue to export your orders uninterrupted. Several orders moved this way last night and we expect no delays on these orders.
- Our factory subject to mandatory business closures is impacting less than 0.4% of our outstanding orders and we’re already working with our client to understand in-hands dates and determine paths to shift production to a secondary factory or accelerate delivery after our primary factory reopens.
- Supporting our factory with a sub-supplier shift by providing financing and cost coverage.
- Financing additional raw material purchases as key suppliers across China to reduce supply chain shocks if these COVID restrictions spread geographically.
- Accelerating our factory redundancy program in India by fast-tracking several top selling products at our new partner factories.
I’ve been saying it for two years now; we live in an uncertain world and having smart, adaptable partners is more important than ever. I’m proud of how Pop! Promos performed for you and our industry over the last two years with industry-leading perfect order rates of 93% in 2020 and 97% in 2021 and a current Net Promoter Score of 90. I have no doubt that 2022 has more surprises in store for us but I can guarantee that Pop! Promos will continue to be your best-in-class partner for creative products, award-winning service, and reliable delivery.
Sincerely,
Sterling Wilson
President, Pop! Promos