Firework Shortages and Price Increases in 2021!

The general population may well be aware of retail high street prices starting to increase in the UK and a lot of this is to do with the pandemic which has caused a gap in the supply chain for goods coming from Asia. In terms of fireworks supplied into the UK from China (which 99% of fireworks are manufactured in China) a storm has been brewing since early 2021. The word was spreading that shipping containers were increasingly more difficult to get hold of, mainly because of the global shutdown due to the pandemic, meaning shipping containers were getting stuck with the end user and not being returned. There was talk of the price of shipping a 40 foot container rising be as much as $20,000 . The feeling was, back in early February, that prices would slowly start to return to normal and once we hit summer all should be ok! In fact the opposite has happened, prices have continued to increase through the year and now (mid August 2021) we are seeing a 400% price increase on shipping and no early indications that it will ease any time soon. Further to this there are massive restrictions on actual container spaces on the ships and the knock on effect is that the majority of firework wholesalers are being limited to the amount of stock they will receive in time for bonfire season! This is further impacted by other conditions as well:

• There is an annual shutdown for all firework factories during February for Chinese New Year.
• The USA completely sold out of retail fireworks in 2020 and as a result vastly increased their orders for this year. These orders have been prioritised by China over UK orders as they are largely required for 4^th July celebrations. 
• There was a further four week shutdown of the firework factories for the 100^th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party as many foreign dignitaries were in attendance and the government did not want any incidents to tarnish the celebrations.
• Immediately after the 100^th anniversary celebrations there was an explosion in one of the factories (not ours) that resulted in yet another three week shutdown.
• With temperatures rising in China factories have been limited to working only a few hours a day and therefore have been unable to complete orders in time for shipping.

The bottom line to all of this is there WILL BE LIMITED STOCKS AVAILABLE FOR RETAILERS OF FIREWORKS IN THE UK FOR 2021 and THERE WILL BE SOME DRASTIC PRICE INCREASES IN RETAIL FIREWORKS TO THE GENERAL CONSUMMER with indications of around 12.5% - 30%.

The good news is that Rainbow Fireworks has secured stock for the season, however, with some price increases across some of the products. We've also secured some great deals through purchases made early in January 2021. We have spread our bet by ordering from 9 different suppliers, including our own branded Rainbow Fireworks products, Astra, Black Cat, Brightstar, Brothers, Celtic, Cosmic, Jonathans, and Vivid.

Rainbow Fireworks