As coronavirus spreads around the world, small business owners who import from China are on edge.

Kyle Kirshner, who has been doing business in China for several years, knew to stock up on supplies ahead of the Lunar New Year. The owner of Kyndley sells outdoor products via Amazon and imports 90% of his goods from China. He has about three months’ supply of items but is unable to order more of his most popular product, a backpack cooler.

“We’re a little worried about that, because we are one of the best sellers on Amazon in that category,” Kirshner said. “I contacted my manufacturer today and their factories are closed right now.”

In our case at ZEND Health, we have majority of our stockpile within the United States and in warehouses located in Maryland, New Jersey and Texas. US Customs have thousands of tons of imports daily to keep inspecting, reinspecting and trying to slow down smugglers of illegal drugs and contraband, taking this opportunity to bring in horrible substances to the United States. This is impacting deliveries and distribution to thousands of our online customers and orders. As the US Customs freeze the distribution and sales of some of the items in our warehouses and many other warehouses of other companies importing goods from outside the country, this causes many customers to wait up to 3 or 4 weeks to simply get an infra red thermometer, medical isolation gowns or nitrile gloves.

“Our customer service team is working overtime being transparent and explaining the situation to customers calling and asking about their orders.” says Mr Ike Nwaneri, Managing partner at ZEND LLC, owners of ZEND Health and medical supplies. “We had to make an executive decision to begin shipping partially fulfilled packages to customers. This is an expensive route for our company but I could not wait any longer for customers to begin getting some of their ordered items. Plus these items are to keep our customers safe and their safety is what our entire company stands for.”

“Our customers, mostly medical offices, small businesses and even some government agencies, have been understanding and patient. We even started shipping out other available items complimentary for the inconvenience.”