Can't say for certain if there's actual shortages of usual grocery and household products or shelves haven't been restocked yet due to employee shortage.

Seems like every time we are shopping at Walmart, DG / FD , and a couple of other local stores we shop most often at, it's common anymore for aisles to be partially blocked with pallets of products either staged waiting to be restocked or in the process of being restocked.

The most obvious thing here so far to me has been overall price increases.

My question -- are price increases due to actual shortages of products causing wholesale price increases, or, ...simply because they can...?