Supply chain issues may be keeping many Americans up — literally — due to backlogs experienced by the world's largest bedding provider.
"We're seeing it a little bit in trucking, obviously the shipping, a little bit in the component issues, primarily chemicals, ... it's getting better, but it continues to be a challenge," Scott Thompson, chairman, president, and CEO of Tempur Sealy, told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). "And we think we'll be working through supply issues probably here for the next couple of quarters."
Tempur-Pedic, the leading maker of memory-foam mattresses, bought competitor Sealy in 2012 and created Tempur Sealy International.
Thomspon noted that Tempur Sealy has about 100 million orders in its backlog to be delivered in the fourth quarter.
"In fact, we expect fourth quarter to be a record fourth quarter, because of the strength of the business," he said.
The company also had turned down another 100 million orders, according to Thompson. If Tempur Sealy had been able to fill all the orders it received, sales would have been up 40% year-over-year in the third quarter, rather than the 20% it reported, he added.
"It's a little disappointing, but look, it's a good time to be in the bedding business worldwide," Thomspon said. "And we feel very fortunate."
Supply chain snags: Tempur Sealy to raise already raised prices
Many companies have begun introducing price increases on household products, while economists continue to debate whether the inflation that the U.S. economy is experiencing is transitory or not.
Thompson said his company had already raised prices on mattresses three times in the last twelve months, and "would probably have to do another round here pretty soon."
Some of the main factors pushing prices up are the many containers stranded at sea and the trucking routes that continue to be clogged.
And even though some containers are being unloaded, there's little space to put them. The lack of storage space for containers has contributed to a major bottleneck at Southern California ports, a Yahoo Finance report found. As a result, empty containers are piled up at truck yards, outside warehouses, and some are even dumped on the side of the road.
"You see it a little bit everywhere," Thompson said, referring to how his company has been impacted by the supply chain pain. "We actually sell beds in a hundred different countries around the world, so we're everywhere. Where the biggest problem is [is] in the United States."
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Aarthi is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. She can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @aarthiswami.
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