Inbound Stock Schedule

Scroll to the bottom of the page to see our schedule of inbound freight currently on the way.

We're facing unprecedented times with inbound freight schedules at the moment. COVID has wreaked havoc with some flow on effects being large delays and increased costs to get freight into the country. Around 75% of what we stock here at United Car Care is sourced internationally - and generally through a sea freight service with time frames of between 6-12 weeks depending on the country of origin. If you've been keeping up with NZ Herald you would have seen the articles below popping up.

So how does this affect United Car Care? And when can you expect your next top-up of your favourite brand?

What this all means is that currently we're experiencing delays of between 4 to 10 weeks additional to normal. This is a combination of our suppliers internationally being understaffed and overworked; and having long lead times - combined with port delays internationally and locally. The minimum time frame a sea freight will now take to reach us from the point of us ordering is 10 weeks (compared to 5-6 weeks prior); and some orders will take up to 16 weeks from the point of order to reach our shelves! The good news is that we have added a table at the bottom of this page to show when we are expecting more stock! We will be endeavoring to update this regularly to keep it as accurate as possible.

What are we doing about these delays?

Honestly; there's not a lot we can do. When possible we are ordering extra stock to keep supply up - and we have also taken on a few air freight shipments to try and keep our shelves stocked too (but at a very high cost). We are working with our suppliers to try and get stock here as soon as possible. As you'll see from the below table there's a lot on the way - it's just a matter of when it gets here.

What do you suggest we do?

Our suggestion to our customers is to do a couple of things. Firstly; stock up. We can't always guarantee when future shipments will arrive and the NZ port delays appear to be ongoing for quite some time - so get your stocks and garage setup well while we have the stock available. We also cannot rule out price increases as a result of these issues so another reason to stock up. If we had to do a price increase it would be because of a) increased costs of importation and freight; and b) having to increase our orders in order to get stock in the country. We would not take this step lightly - but we also cannot rule it out.

Lastly - use our back in stock alert system. Any product that is out of stock can have a back in stock alert added (shown below) so you get an email as soon as it's back in stock.

Something not on this list or have more questions? Get in touch!
sales@unitedcarcare.co.nz 
0800 463 478