The short-lived peak season in's trans-Pacific region has shifted the container shipping industry's hopes for a big jump in U.S. imports to late December and early January. Inventory destocking continues, and most retail shippers will need to place large purchase orders with Asian factories, although retailers have traditionally stockpiled for the spring and replenished inventory after the winter vacation runs out and before the Chinese New Year.
According to data from PIERS, a global subsidiary of Standard & Poor's, Asian imports to the United States reached a peak so far this year in July, reaching an 11-month high. Compared with July 2022, this figure is still down 10%, but Global Port Tracker expects year-on-year growth in November and December to be 8% and 10.7 per cent, respectively.
James Caradonna, vice president of MCL-Multi Container Line, said a big reason for the tight space in late August in Los Angeles and Long Beach was that about 15 percent of capacity was idled in the second half of August. But this MoM sales growth is a far cry from what we call the traditional peak season.
Jason Miller, associate professor of logistics at Michigan State University, analyzed federal inventory data and showed that weak U.S. imports will continue until mid -2024, but some furniture and household goods sellers have made significant progress in destocking. As of June, the sector's inventories were down 6.3 percent from their September 2022 high. But other industries still have some way to go.
demand and rate movements also varied by route, with Asia-to-Southern California service handling spillover from western Canadian ports that have all but recovered from last month's labor disruption. Demand from Asia to the Pacific Northwest is weak.
Despite receiving new vessels from shipyards, container shipping lines have canceled capacity and slowed capacity, which has made cabins tighter than actually needed and prevented spot freight rates from plummeting. But at the same time, as of August 28, according to Sea-Intelligence data, container shipping lines accounted for only 3 per cent of deployed capacity before the holidays, compared with 12.4 per cent in 2019.
Kevin Paxson, a consultant who used to be head of logistics at Hasbro, Dollar General and Walmart, said Parkerson that the prospect of a sharp rebound in imports this year has been delayed, and the fastest time for the trans-Pacific region to return to its traditional seasonality may be before the Chinese New Year, when manufacturing production usually slows during the two-week holiday period. Next year's Spring Festival will begin on February 10. The period between the year-end winter holidays and the Chinese New Year is traditionally seen in the industry as a barometer of retailers' willingness to replenish inventory and airlines to rein in capacity to meet generally rising demand.
freight forwarding network