TEXAS, USA — If we’re talking supplies - businesses are literally grasping at straws.
Jeremy Simpson with Times Square Grand Slam in Tyler said movie theater supplies like certain candy, straws and movie projectors are hard to find.
In Theater 2 at the venue, the projector is out. Normally, the team would be able to get a replacement as fast as the next day. With these recent shortages, that process is taking weeks.
While the projector is down, they cant show any movies. When they can’t show any movies, they cant sell any seats.
One-hundred-sixty seats selling for $5-$8 each for up to five showings a day adds up.
“It's a lot of money,” Simpson said.
CBS19 did the math and lost revenue could add up to about $6,500 per day.
Simpson says their food prices are also up 30-40%. So far, the business has been absorbing these extra costs, but that can’t last forever.
“It really just depends on how high they go, and how quickly they go there," Simpson said. "That will determine whether we can keep absorbing, or if we'll have to pass that on to our customers.”
Costs are mounting while supply declines for businesses across the nation says Boston College economist Dr. Aleksander Tomic.
“You have basically three factors at play,"Dr. Tomic said. "You have the demand that's not letting up for variety of reasons. You also have very tight labor market and then finally, you have uncertainty.”
He says manufacturers are worried they’ll make too much product to satisfy demand. If demand levels out too quickly, they’ll be left with more supply than they know what to do with.
Dr. Tomic also says the economy has been more inflated in the past than it is now and if we can survive the double-digit inflation levels of the 70s, we can rebound from these rates too.
“We just have to be maybe a little more patient when we want to order something,” Dr. Tomic said.
