CABOT, Ark. — First it was supplies like toilet paper, then it was food such chicken wings.
The next thing you may see a shortage of is fireworks and it's just in time for the Fourth of July.
For stand owners like Austin Johnson, those shortages take a toll.
"Most of the startup and all that kind of falls on my shoulders, as far as getting everything prepped and ready," Johnson, owner of J&J Fireworks in Cabot, said. "My parents helped me start it about 10 years ago in 2012."
The shortages have affected them in a big way.
When Johnson reached out to his supplier, he didn't hear what he normally does.
"They only had about 20% of my total order," he said. "Normally it'd be somewhere around 70%."
Normally Johnson orders his supply around March, but this year he had to order in January.
"We've heard customers. They've been asking about the shortage and stuff like that. They're coming out earlier than normal because they're scared, some of them," Johnson said. "They'd wait until the last minute cause they wanted discounts, they left without."
This left them in a tough spot. They still needed supply just like everyone else, even with the shortage.
"So what he'd do is he would have the supplier send him an itemized sheet of all the inventory they had every single night," Tyler Williams, Johnson's coworker, said. "He would go through and pick and choose and make sure that he had the quantity that he needed to run this tent at full capacity."
Even when the tent is full, issues may still arise.
Thanks to both a shortage in supplies along with a heightened demand, prices for items are higher than they usually are.
"Prices have been gone up 20 to 30 percent, just in our cost," Williams said.
For a family owned business like this, that could be scary, as you don't want to isolate your clientele.
Despite the shortage they're not worried, because their family owned business goes beyond just blood-ties now.
"Like our shirt says: it's fun, family, fireworks," Williams said. "When we say family, it's not just this immediate family, it's the community at this point. You know the number of faces we see every year and they've really grown to be part of our family."