When we first focus on the ocean shipping is in January, we posted an article(https://lnkd.in/gqX6RnDJ) regarding the ocean freight increasing sharply issue. Now 8 months after, the situation seems worsen. In 2021, almost all of our deliveries were delayed, because of failing to book a container on time.
Freight forwarder told us, a lot of trucks lining up outside the port every morning, spend a long time to take one container.
Why there always short of container?
A common situation is that a fully loaded ship transports goods produced in China abroad, but due to the epidemic and other reasons, foreign ports cannot handle these goods in a short period of time. As a result, a large number of containers and goods are backlogged at the port.
At the same time, because China’s demand for materials is not as strong as overseas, that is to say, there are not so many goods to be transported back to China from abroad. Therefore, a ship full of goods may only be driven back empty, or ship some raw materials that do not need to be packed back to China. In this way, the supply of domestic containers has become increasingly tight.
Due to the shortage of domestic containers, container shipping costs have soared to the highest point in more than a decade.
Freight for a 40” container to Europe, is 4000-8000USD in normal time, but is 6000-12000USD in this year; to west America is 4000-6000USD in normal time, but 12000-18000USD in this year.
The only way for us, is to plan the delivery as early as we can.