Jump right in: Q4 Inventory Import Advice: Prepare for Peak Season

• Plan Ahead
• Demand
• Capacity Restraints
• Prepare for Delays
• Increased Costs
• Summary

Container shipments play a crucial role in global trade, as they are responsible for transporting goods across the ocean to various destinations across the world.

While container shipments occur year-round, there is a peak season when demand for shipping services is at its highest. This peak season typically occurs in the months leading up to major holidays such as Black Friday, Christmas, Boxing Day, and the Chinese New Year.

If you plan on shipping your inventory via sea cargo for your peak season fulfillment, you will want to continue reading as we explore what to expect and best practices. We want to help you meet customers’ demands during this peak season.

What should you expect during the months leading up to the peak season of 2024?

Insight #1: Plan Ahead

I cannot stress enough how important it is to plan! This will allow you to mitigate the potential challenges of the peak season for container shipments, businesses need to book their shipping services well in advance.

By securing space on vessels early on and working closely with certified logistics providers, like IGT Logistics, you can help ensure a smoother shipping experience during the peak season. Also planning for the increased costs will help you mitigate the increased demand and potential capacity restraints that are being predicted. 

Insight #2: Peak Demand

During the peak season, there is always a demand for container shipments as businesses and consumers ramp up their orders in preparation for the holidays. The increased demand can lead to congestion at the ports and longer wait times for vessels to be loaded and unloaded.

According to a recent post on Interlog USA, space continues to be an issue, make sure you are using a logistics provider that will honor the space commitments they previously agreed on. Ensure that you have clear timelines and frequent updates from your suppliers so that your freight forwarder can work on arranging the voyage for the goods.

Insight #3: Capacity Restraints

We recently reached out to our affiliate partner, IGT Logistics, to get their take on what our clients should expect this year. They are already seeing higher than normal surges in import volumes which means there are companies that are already planning for the peak retail season.

Due to the port restraints and the higher volume being seen during the peak season, there is a higher likelihood of delays in transit times. Factors such as congestion for offloading containers, locating chassis, and available drivers can impact how quickly you can get your shipment to your 3PL Partner. 

This is all due to the diversion around the Red Sea, freight forwarders are forced to go around the Southern Tip of Africa. That along with the drought conditions that are affecting water levels within the Panama Canal, limiting the number of vessels allowed to pass through daily. Both issues are causing longer voyages and wait times for new shipments. Ultimately it causes congestion within the ports on both incoming and leaving voyages.  

There are already talks about a possible rail strike in Canada and this will impact shipments that are routed through Canadian West Coast Ports, like Prince Rupert and Vancouver.  Using these ports could potentially risk your shipments being held for a long period of time.

Insight #4: Prepare for Delays

You could say there’s a perfect storm brewing, that’s not weather-related, within the industry, with fewer voyages, fewer containers due to the backlog, and labor disruptions. It is more important than ever to ensure you’re prepared and using a certified logistics provider, like IGT Logistics, for your shipments, ensuring you are not missing out on the peak season.

When speaking with IGT Logistics, we asked what the most cost-effective route for our clients would be to ship a container from Asia. Normally they would recommend that we have them routed through Canadian West Coast Ports, but as we already outlined above there are talks about a possible rail strike so that could potentially delay your incoming peak season goods even more.

Make sure your logistics provider can route the shipments so that you experience less delays and still be cost-effective. As of right now, we are recommending that clients still have them routed to the US West Coast ports for Asia shipments and US East Coast for delivery locations South America, and Europe.

Insight #5: Increased Costs

As demand for container shipments increases during the peak season, so can costs. We are already hearing to expect higher freight rates and surcharges at the ports, by May we have seen an increase of about a whopping 50-60% from Asia to the US. No Logistics handlers are expecting these to decrease until after the 2025 Chinese New Year.  

No one, not even the experts, is able to predict where the market will be, and this has been an issue since the pandemic. Working closely with your logistics provider will ensure a smooth transition as they will know when vessels should arrive and be able to arrange transit with the freight carriers, avoiding delays in the port and additional warehousing costs.