With Amazon giving priority of its product delivery to daily necessities and pushing back that for PC products, most PC vendors are now seeking alternative ways to ship their devices to clients, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
Global demand for PCs has been picking up recently due to growing needs for work and study from home, but vendors are having problems getting their products to consumers, as the traditional physical retail channels and the logistic systems worldwide have been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Amazon is set to keep its daily-necessities-first policy at least until April 5 and will notify brand vendors when it resumes the normal one, the sources said.
Some brand vendors' PC shipments are expected to grow 50-100% on year in March as they need to fulfill downstream partners' orders that were deferred from February, and the stay-at-home demand from Europe and North America has also brought more PC orders.
Brand vendors have also been competing fiercely for spaces on cargo planes as the number of passenger airplanes - which vendors used to rely on for transporting their shipments - has been significantly reduced due to the pandemic.
Vendors who are unable to ship via cargo planes have chosen marine transportation, which takes an extra 1-2 months compared to air freight, and may cause problems for vendors' sales and marketing plans.
