Shipping and Shopping

Uncanny Valley | WIRED

WIRED

Technology

4.1 • 570 Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2021

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hey, how's that holiday shopping coming along? It's still a little early to start panicking in earnest, but right now is the best time to start buying stuff if you want it to arrive in time for the holidays. You might have noticed how you'll go to order something online, but it's either completely unavailable or it won’t ship for weeks or months. That's because the global supply chain has been a little screwy lately, set off kilter by a combination of logistical problems, resource shortages, and manufacturing woes. It's a weird time for buying things, and even weirder time for shipping them.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior reviews editor Adrienne So joins us to talk about supply chain woes and why now is the time to start your holiday shopping.

Show Notes:

Read Adreinne’s story about timing your holiday shopping properly. Read Amanda Mull’s story in The Atlantic about the nasty logistics of returning all that stuff you buy. Here’s Lauren’s Verge story about how everything is connected and there’s no going back.

Recommendations:

Adrienne recommends the books in the Wheel of Time series, which comes to Amazon Prime Video as a streaming TV program later this month. Lauren recommends the six-part CNN documentary, Lincoln: Divided We Stand. Mike recommends watching Re:Wired, our annual big ideas conference, which streams for free November 9 and 10.

Adrienne So can be found on Twitter @adriennemso. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

If you have feedback about the show, or just want to enter to win a $50 gift card, take our brief listener survey here.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Lauren. Mike. Lauren, have you started your holiday shopping yet? No. Absolutely not. I'm just, I'm giving people hugs this year, provided they are vaccinated. Right. No supply chain issues there, just free hugs. Well, that will be delightful. Oh, all right. Good to know. I'm glad you approve. You might want to start hugging now. Why is that?
0:22.7	We're going to get into that on this week's show.
0:23.4	Okay.
0:32.3	Hi, everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab.
0:34.6	I am Michael Colori, a senior editor at Wired.
0:38.2	And I'm Lauren Good. Senior Huggiver at WIRE.
0:39.5	I'm a writer.
0:44.8	We're also joined this week by Wired Senior Associate Reviews editor Adrian.
0:45.9	So, hello, Adrienne.
0:46.6	Welcome back.
0:47.4	Hi, guys.
0:49.3	Great to have you here, as always.
0:50.6	And happy holidays.
0:55.6	Okay, sure, it's probably a little early to be saying that, but that's kind of the point.
1:00.6	You have no doubt been hearing a lot about problems with the global supply chain.
1:07.1	Computers, new cars, e-bikes, televisions. The whole consumer products industry seems to be stalling out.
1:13.2	You may have even encountered this. You go to order something, it gets delayed during shipping, or it just isn't available to begin with.
1:14.2	Later on in the show, we're going to go over some advice about how to get your shopping
1:18.0	needs taken care of during all of this weirdness, but first, we want to talk about the
1:22.7	supply chain mess itself.
1:24.2	First, maybe we should define what is the supply chain. It's becoming something
1:28.9	of a meme where people often joke that like they can't find a date right now because of supply
	...

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