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Anyone who’s spent much time shopping online in the past year will have been plagued by two words: ‘Currently unavailable’. When lockdown began, manufacturers around the world slashed production, prompting retailers to cut orders in return. The result has been an unprecedented shortage of items on the real and virtual shelves.

Technology has been particularly badly hit by a global processor shortage, restricting supplies not just of computers, phones and tablets, but also cars, microwave ovens and washing machines. It affects magazines as well as shoppers: several times this year we’ve refrained from recommending products because they’re no longer available.

There’s nothing you can do to end this crisis, which analysts expect to last until 2023. But you