As retailers stocked up both stores and warehouses for the holiday season while also meeting new demands for quick delivery of online orders, imports remained strong according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released Dec. 9 by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.
“The pandemic has made the past year one of the most trying the supply chain has ever seen, but retailers have met that challenge,” NRF vice president for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said in a statement.
“We’ve gone from not knowing whether we would be able to get merchandise from China to having a surplus of goods when stores were closed to having to meet pent-up demand as consumers returned," Gold added."
"At this point, retailers have seen a successful holiday season so far and goods are reaching the shelves. We hope 2020 is a one-time experience, but we’ve learned a lot.”
The sector has experienced ups and downs. Hackett Associates Founder Ben Hackett said the retail inventory-to-sales ratio soared to 1.68 in April, when most stores were closed, then plummeted more than 25% to 1.22 in June. It has stayed at that level since that time. “With inventories low but demand growing, we have witnessed a surge in imports as retailers try to keep up,” Hackett said in a statement. “The dramatic shift to online shopping coupled with the expectation of next-day delivery is also spurring the growth of imports at warehouses for major online sellers, who need to have enough stock on hand not just to meet demand but to meet it instantly.”
U.S. ports handled 2.21 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units in October, which was up 17.6% year-over-year and up 5.2% from 2.11 million TEU in September.. September edged out 2.1 million TEU in August, which had broken the previous record of 2.04 million TEU set in October 2018.
October’s number brought the total for the “peak season” to 8.3 million TEU, an increase of 8.8% over the same time last year and beat the previous record of 7.7 million TEU set in 2018.
November imports remained strong at an estimated 2.07 million – a 22.4% jump year-over-year and the fourth-busiest month on record. December is forecast at 1.91 million TEU, up 11% from last year. As recently as a month ago, 2020 was expected to total 20.9 million TEU, a drop of 3.4% from last year and the lowest annual total since 20.5 million TEU in 2017 because of low imports earlier this year. But with the recent string of record months, 2020 is expected to come in at 21.8 million TEU, up 0.8% over 2019. That would tie 2018 as the busiest year on record.
Looking ahead the forecast for this year compared to last year is as follows:
- January 2021 is forecast at 1.86 million TEU, up 2.4%
- February at 1.55 million TEU, up 2.6 %
- March at 1.62 million TEU, up 17.8% when factories in China failed to reopen after the Lunar New Year holiday.
- April at 1.74 million TEU, up 8.3%
NRF has forecast that holiday sales during November and December will increase between 3.6% and 5.2 percent over 2019 to a total between $755.3 billion and $766.7 billion.
