Team Insight

a lot of time and resources trying to locate the compatible styles and colors to substitute the missing sizes. "ere are still a lot of holes in inventory," says Isaac Reyna in the Team Sales Department at Mira's Sporting Goods, Corpus Christi, TX. "Whatever can complete an order is what teams are getting." Filling the gaps is understandably hard. It's become common for orders to only come in two sizes, which means locating a match in the rest of the sizes makes ordering that much more complicated. Reyna reports he has to move from brand to brand or from style to style in order to get teams a complete cap order. As a result, they have to be willing to sacrifice the colors they want and may have to accept that they'll be wearing new colors for the upcoming season. "A lot of teams are having a hard time with this," he says. Luna says this is common with the teams he sells to as well. "Teams have to resort to other colors and they've got to be more flexible," he says. However, the supply chain issues have created a wave of complications that weren't as prevalent last year. While shipping times, inventory and style requests are still at the top of the list of obstacles stressing both teams and dealers out, a new challenge has resulted from the supply chain issues they saw last year — distributors. is year, many independent distributors have been able to gain access to caps from the manufacturers before dealers do. As a result, they are buying them in bulk and marking up the prices because they get better rates from the manufacturers. Dealers like Luna are reluctantly turning to distributors to fill the cap orders they need, but it comes at a price to the teams they are outfitting. "e suppliers are cutting off the distrib- utors from getting so many caps," says Luna. "Now customers are saying, 'Why are caps so expensive?'" With so much work being put in to fulfill a complete order, team dealers report that styles and trends are non-existent once again this year. However, many teams try to go aer the trucker style cap, if they can get their hands on them. "For the popular styles, you can't expect to see any come in until January 2023," says Luna, although he also reports that the traditional trucker mesh will likely still be unavailable by that time. Since caps are difficult enough for team dealers to get, another question arises: Will families be able to support their teams by placing orders of their own? "Inventory for family styles is way down. We are ordering inventory for Christmas and hoping it comes by the fall," says Frey. Luna recommends teams get extra caps and give them to the parents, since they won't be able to order any more at a later date. "A lot of people have been bumping up their orders for that reason," he says. It's safe to say that teams have moved past some of the challenges associated with the pan- demic that they faced the past two years. Trying to obtain a positive outlook, team dealers hope that supply chain issues will begin to disappear in 2023. However, the jury is still out for now. "Shipping is expected to be bad until at least 2024," says Luna. n teaminsightmag.com July/August 2022 ~ Team Insight • 25 U-FORM ADJUSTABLE VISOR BREATHABLE MATRIX MESH To learn more visit: www.richardsonsports.com The evolution of our Micro-Mesh, built to compliment the Matrix Mesh fabric used in our PTS Signature and Pro Select uniforms. R-FLEX R-FLEX ADJUSTABLE FIT

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