For GQ Fashions in OKC, business is back, but pandemic’s effect on supply chain lingers

Two decades ago, as the COVID-19 pandemic designed its initial influence the condition of Oklahoma, Andy Mahbubani experienced to quickly shut down his family’s outfits store.

GQ Fashions Wonderful Menswear put in the overall thirty day period of April 2020 temporarily shut mainly because of the pandemic and Gov. Kevin Stitt’s Safer at Household plan that shuttered nonessential small business.

When he reopened, Mahbubani anxious that the organization wouldn’t have the very same level of success as ahead of the shutdown the previous two decades saw double-digit development, but GQ Fashions’ business enterprise product relies seriously on dressing its buyers for events like weddings, promenade and church providers. The pandemic struck the functions business just as tough, or even more challenging, than the cafe business.

But two years later on, the store at NW 23 and Interstate 44 is nevertheless open up. And in accordance to Mahbubani, it’s been occupied.

“We have noticed an uptick in phrases of men and women heading back again to gatherings, going to get-togethers, weddings, persons are commencing to get married yet again. So yeah, we’re doing pretty well essentially,” he explained.

It took a handful of months for company to decide on back again up as people today felt a lot more cozy with big gatherings.

Luckily for us for Mahbubani, GQ Fashions in no way had the staffing difficulties that other corporations knowledgeable in the course of 2020 and 2021. But just one dilemma he is operate into persistently is a single that is currently being felt throughout the environment — delays in the source chain.

China exported virtually $40 billion worth of textiles to the United States right before the pandemic manufacturers there normally offer the makes located in GQ Fashions.

“Something as very simple as a black suit or white shirt, you know, ended up coming very really hard to uncover,” Mahbubani reported.

He is experimented with to mitigate these problems by getting far more than he requires anytime he has the probability. Which is led to an overstock of 30-40%.

“In actuality, I am storing stuff in storage models and warehouses. We’re applying whatever resources we can to make positive we have the fundamental things that persons want,” Mahbubani claimed. “They say ‘make the hay when the sunshine shines,’ appropriate? So when we can get merchandise, we acquire as significantly as we can.”

Tale carries on

There’s no indicator that the offer chain difficulties will conclusion anytime soon. Together with the lingering consequences of the very first main wave of coronavirus that swept through China, shuttering factories and delaying shipments around the globe, a different spherical of infections this 12 months has brought on much more shutdowns in the state with rigorous lockdown policies made use of for made up of the virus.

For instance this thirty day period, China ordered a lockdown of the 9 million inhabitants of the northeastern metropolis of Changchun amid a spike in COVID-19 instances in the place attributed to the highly contagious omicron variant.

“The folks in the material manufacturing facility are operating creating fabric. The men and women in the accommodate manufacturing unit are working earning satisfies. But you can’t get buttons for the reason that the province exactly where the buttons are produced is shut down,” he mentioned. “In point, a lot of our makers and vendors are looking for means to get out of China at this issue because they are quite rigid on their lockdowns.”

Staff members author Dale Denwalt addresses Oklahoma’s financial state and company news for The Oklahoman. Have a tale idea for Dale? He can be arrived at at [email protected] or on Twitter at @denwalt. Aid Dale’s operate and that of other Oklahoman journalists by getting a electronic subscription now at subscribe.oklahoman.com.

This article initially appeared on Oklahoman: Pandemic’s result on offer chain lingers for OKC clothes store