This holiday season, just about everything that ends up in your shopping cart has taken a tumultuous journey through the world’s mangled supply chains. Some items that should have arrived months ago are just showing up. Others are tied up at factories, ports and warehouses around the globe, waiting for shipping containers, planes or trucks to transport them where they belong. And because of this, prices across the board are rising on many holiday items.
In the US, 77 ships are waiting outside docks in Los Angeles and Long Beach, California. Overwhelmed trucking, warehouse and rail logistics are contributing to more severe port delays, and to the overall slog in end to end logistics.
Air situation is also this case. Scarce warehouse space and under-staffed ground handling crews in both the US and Europe limit how much cargo can be processed, regardless of the space on planes. What makes the air shipping worse is that the reduced air flights makes it more difficult to book shipping space than ever. Shipping companies expect the global crunch to continue. That's massively increasing the cost of moving cargo and could add to the upward pressure on consumer prices.
It is estimated that the backlogs and elevated shipping costs are likely to stretch into next year. "We currently expect the market situation only to ease in the first quarter of 2022 at the earliest," Hapag-Lloyd chief executive Rolf Habben Jansen said in a recent statement.
While the climbing shipping cost is out of our control and there will always be unexpected delays, there are some things you can do to cut down on that risk. Below are some tactics that Stars Packaging suggests:
1. Buffer your freight budget;
2. Set the right delivery expectations;
3. Update your inventory more often;
4. Place orders earlier;
5. Use multiple shipping methods.
Post time: Dec-22-2021