caroline: inflation in america is running at its highest in a generation. and it is a fact that every consumer and business must face as we close out 2021. get this, 44 days until christmas, a critical time for retailers already dealing with supply chain pain and inflation is not just a u.s. issue.

global, the mexican central bank moving on it. will price pressures curtail shoppers around the world? alibaba, singles' day, posting record sales and in the u.s. things are holding up pretty well. romaine: putting it like that, can people get what they want, people have already started. i've already ordered a bunch of stuff and i'm trying to find little places around the house to hide them, meaning i won't be able to find them on the 24th, but you can see the bump up here in jewelry, watches, household appliances. people taking these warnings to heart. the idea that if you want something specific, you have got to order it now and make sure you have got it because if you wait until black friday or beyond, you may not actually get it. talking more about this, our senior analyst at bloomberg intelligence joins us now to talk a little bit more about this. how much shopping have you done

so far? >> none. [laughter] i have a long list. yes, get online now. i'm black friday you may not find what you want. or even now. we are hearing retailers say at, brands say it, there is not enough inventory sitting on the ships, they will be out of stock at higher levels than we have seen in the past. sonali: it must be even worse if you are thinking about goods that have to be delivered. when should you be ordering by? >> if the goods are in stock, retailers can still work with carriers to get it to you in the two to four day window that they promise, but i would say give yourself a week. the week before christmas, ordering something, it may not arrive in time for the tree. even amazon prime, some things don't arrive in two days,

there's too much to ship and there's too much supply -- not enough supply. caroline: are we all going to be buying gift cards this year? are we all going to be doing experiences? >> i think we will. last year during the pandemic people were not ready to go out just yet, but now they are. you will see more gift cards, spa certificates. just because going out is more acceptable today then it was last year. romaine: real quick, we know people like to look to these retail stocks as a way to make a play on christmas spending here, but will there be distortions investors need to be mindful of, given the chart that we had earlier, suggesting a lot of people started doing their shopping in october? >> the distortions will be for the big retailers here, the ones that can store big inventory and

drive sales, but that said they will be having fewer discounts, which is always great for marginalized margins. caroline: well, let's let you get to your shopping. meanwhile, talking about shopping, we need people to help us in store, so let's bring in an expert from columbia business school, mark cohen. what do you think will be the pinch point this year? we are all fretting about things not getting off the boats and planes quick enough. but are there people who can get them and serve them to us? >> it's an era of continued disruption. we would like to think that covid is kind of over, but it absolutely is not. millions of folks were laid off, on furlough, or withdrew from the work back to their jobs as

many folks had expected them to. some have retired, some have taken early retirement. and now of course with a seemingly serious labor shortage , there's lots of competition for seasonal employment. wage rates have gone up, benefits have gone up in some cases and become unprecedented. amazon is offering college tuition for folks who joined them and stick around. so, we are going to have to wait it out. the one thing that we can probably count on is that the labor shortages, the labor disruption will slowly abate. because in fact most folks have to go back to work. they may have been able to protect themselves through government subsidy, but that's all over at this point. sonali: in theory this could be a great time of negotiation for workers. what are some of the things

retailers are offering that are more innovative and competitive and can last a little longer? >> traditionally, retailers with large seasonal hiring goals have been able to pick and choose who they brought on board, but the worm has turned and now prospective employees can shop for opportunities. look for highest wages, best benefits, most convenient location, best work schedules. they are more or less being offered the sun, the moon, and the stars to come on board. this is occurring everywhere in the supply chain. not just that detail. you've got the truck drivers in the folks working in the distribution centers as we struggle to get ourselves back on our feet. romaine: talking about the sun, the moon, and the stars, does that being -- bring people off the sidelines, particularly the older workers who may have given

up on the job market, is there sort of enough there that it could bring them back and fill some of the void that we have? >> absent resources in retirement or early retirement, most folks really do have to go back to work, so the question for them is where and when and i think we are going to see this sort of work itself out over the next six months, maybe as long as the next year. it's probably not going to work itself out between now and christmas, the next 40 some odd days. that's a completely unrealistic view. there's going to be labor issues that will be pronounced and stores that won't open because no one is there to unlock the door in the morning. and there will be labor issues that will be more or less solved . the issue is going to be local and it will be the same issue with regards to supply shortages . some stores will be well stocked and others will be in terrible

shape. caroline:, but what about the local store or the etsy small maker of goods? is this a time for them to shine going local, because usually e-commerce comes in a couple of days, or are they going to be as hampered as the rest of us? >> i think we are looking at a madcap scramble among the largest and smallest retailers to get their share of holiday business, which to your earlier point, will take, which in some views will be seen as revenge shopping as customers come out of the woodwork who have been forced to stay close to home for the last year and a half. i would say, though, that an intelligent shopper should really be checking off their

holiday list now and be doing it online, most high integrity online retailers pull things from their website that are no longer available by way of in stock, or they alert their customer before the order is placed that something may be delayed. waiting to hit a mall or a store in the peak of the holiday that's upcoming will be very frustrating. there will be stores without sufficient sales associates to transact and there will be shortages of goods that would typically be on a shelf that would be missing. romaine: yeah, you walk into a retail store now in you can definitely see the shelves are more bare than they used to be and even online your selection is definitely more limited. really great to catch up with you, mark. we will talk more about the inventories and supply chain

levels, continuing our focus on the consumer and you can see here that this is where price pressures are across the u.s.. i mean, where aren't they? it looks like the yellow is actually the most severe part. caroline: actually, the u.s. is not doing bad, then. romaine: i mean the main ports of entry, you have to factor that in. sonali: makes me want to stop complaining, it is always worse somewhere else. romaine: we are going to speak to the ceo behind brands like nana boat. rob little of edge well is going to be joining us in just a minute. this is bloomberg.

romaine: all right, today we are focused on the retail landscape ahead of the holiday season here, just 14 days until thanksgiving, 17 to hanukkah, 44 before christmas. we are going to talk about how some of these issues are being dealt with by various companies out there, including by edge well, who reported decent earnings. seems a lot of these companies are holding up well around the supply chain and the costs associated with it. caroline: yeah, look at these numbers with guidance leading the consensus view, this company is showing strength easing -- even as they talk about ongoing costs inflation and some i chain disruption, pressure through fiscal 2022 and the man who is managing this, rod little, the

edge well ceo. on one side it's a great help, people returning, traveling, wanting to purchase sun care cream, but on the flipside you have the perfect storm of the supply chain and labor issues. how are you dealing with these costs issues? rod: great to be here. we are optimistic at edge well. he finished our year, one of our best is a publicly traded company. we had momentum at the end of the year. you referenced the 11% sales growth. it was broad-based growth with real momentum and what it tells you is that the demand is there from consumers and frankly, we still have categories that haven't fully recovered from covid-19. particularly the international markets, where we generate 45% of our sales, it's a difficult operating environment, the supply chain is messy, i guess is the simplest way to say it.

nothing is easy at the moment. costs 10 point. sonali: what are you doing to get on the offense when it comes to supply pressures here? every ceo in america in the world is facing something like this. rod: we have real supply chain management that is historically great. set off regionally, in many ways we shortened it, so what we sell in the united states we largely make in the united states. what we sell in asia, we largely make an asia, same for europe. it has helped to have redundancy in the supply chain, but we are no different than anyone else. materials have been stuck in ports in some cases, shutting down production lines, then you don't have the material and we have to get that material and

others wise of that material on an airplane to ship to the ultimate manufacturing site, which just is good, right? duel shipments, dual inventories, and it's expensive to do that. but we have done that and our focus is on supply with products on the shelf. romaine: regardless of the continuity of having it on the shelf, but the people, when it isn't there and they are brand loyal, they are forced to sort of purchase a competitors product here. have you seen issues with that? do you worry that some of the substitution consumers have been forced into might actually stick? rod: that's a great point and that's exactly what is happening. consumer will sometimes look for you if you are not there and available, but many times they will just get the substitute product. we have actually been the net beneficiary of that, if you look at sun care over the last

season, we grew. up 55% in the last quarter. 25% on the year. part of that was we were available and in stock. i think we were the best manufacturer being available in stock and it wasn't only supply coming out of the factories, but it was regulatory related. there was recall on product that we avoided and part of that is not only being a part of the supply, but having stronger regulatory formulation qa capabilities available. caroline: how immutable is the buyer at the moment to taking higher prices when you are acutely aware that what you make is necessary. i want to protect my skin. feminine care. it's something you can't avoid. how are you passing on costs rises to the consumer at the moment? rod: this is the highest level

of inflation i've seen in 25 years in this business. it's a wage pressure that i think is more temporary and it is materials on inflation pressure. we have 350 to 400 basis points of inflation planned in year on the margin line and we will price back about 150 of those. we won't get it all back, certainly, and in terms of costs savings productivity there will be another 150 to 180 basis points back. not all of it, but in a good spot relative to our competitors. but it does require some pricing, there's just no way around it. i think you know, the consumer has shown that if you have the right product offer and bring the right value, the consumer in some cases is willing to pay more and we took pricing recently, it was just last

month, into single digits, following that competition there. we took wet ones back in the spring. we will selectively look at the rest of the portfolio. but we never want to get to a point where the first move is to price higher. we do try to go after that internally to maintain price where we can. sonali: as you go through these challenges, are you able to innovate and invest in new products as well? rod: we are in thank you for that question. it's a key point. i'm super optimistic, my team is optimistic, we have a great pipeline of products to come. we are launching two new brands next year. organically we haven't done that since we separated from energizer five or six years ago. we will be launching two in the coming year. we will be relaunching the men's shaving business, elevating

schick as a master brand and bringing the biggest innovation we have had in year -- years around the playtex business and organics. we have made significant investments in the pipeline in terms of new products and we have increased advertising support behind those brands at the same time. caroline: rob, great to get some time with you. thank you for being so transparent. coming up, we continue our focus on the consumer amid high prices and the alibaba singles' day has record sales posts. we discussed that next and what that could signal for holiday shopping right here in the united states. this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: singles' day for alibaba, the world's biggest

shopping day, one of the biggest recent drivers of the growth is livestreaming influencers, some of whom have built massive followings and can move billions of dollars in goods in a single broadcast. here's a look at the future of growth in these live streams. >> meet two of chinese most influential influencers. these two have such big followings, one of them sold 50,000 units of lipstick in five minutes. together they racked up sales last year of eight $2 billion, making her a multimillionaire at age 36 with one of her broadcast pulling in a record high audience of 37 million people. more than the game of thrones finale or the oscars. across mainland china, online streams rake in the revenue of $149 billion last year.

that represented about 10% of their annual online retail sales of just under 10 trillion in 2020. astronomical growth really for an industry that alibaba pioneered as a marketing tool just five years ago and a survey last year found that almost 40% of all chinese internet users had watched e-commerce live streams. 28,000 companies operate as livestreaming agencies, growing so successful in some cases that several are said to be considering growing -- going public. but all of the capital flowing in has drawn increased scrutiny from beijing. in april regulators set new rules around the types of goods and services sold and how they are marketed towards viewers and they cracked down on fraud with several influencing agencies accused of selling fake products and inflating figures, earning them advances from streaming platforms. the biggest impact could come

from regulation linked to the common prosperity drive as part of an initiative to reshape chinese society where authorities have cracked down on the culture of celebrities, could -- putting at risk one of the key pillars of the industry 's success. for now it is business as usual but any potential fallout cannot be quantum -- quantified yet. caroline: that's the view -- romaine: that's the view in china, but this is a global phenomenon, particularly in developed nations. youtube is having a weeklong livestream event where select social media stars are going to sell products directly on the platform and this is kind of the rise of what we have seen, the influence of social media as a shopping destination. remember joe weisenthal who used to host this show a few years ago? i complimented him on a tie and

he said he got it on instagram. now if you like everybody gets that. sonali: some calling this an anti-synergy e-commerce move. romaine: this is bloomberg. ♪

>> from the heart of where innovation, power, and money collide, silicon valley and beyond, this is "bloomberg technology" with emily chang. emily: debates continue to rev up. he planned to sell