Inventories

For June, the most recent month for which data is available, Port Tracker reported that import volume, for the ports covered in the report, came in at 2.16 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEU), marking a 3.6% gain over May and up 17.7% annually. Which brings total volume over the first half to 2024 to 12.1 million TEU, a 15% annual increase.

When looking at inventory-to-sales ratios, Prather stressed that they are typically viewed at a “high level,” for things like total business, manufacturing, retailers, or wholesale trade. But he cautioned that is not enough, because one needs to take a deeper look at individual sector indices, especially when it comes to the less-than-truckload (LTL) sector.

The influential 35th annual State of Logistics Report released today shows how logisticians are adapting to what the report calls “permanent volatility” in their supply chains while they ride out the wave of uncertainty.

Freightos highlighted what it called “an unexpected start to Peak Season,” coupled with Red Sea-driven congestion, tight capacity, and low empty container levels at Asian hubs to roll containers and push ocean rates up sharply.

For revenues, the report viewed third quarter expectations as “an interesting paradox with shipper optimism on the rise, but the expected magnitude of growth has moderated greatly, with 70% of the report’s respondents expecting positive third quarter revenue growth, topping expectations for the first and second quarters, which each respectively came in at 65%.

In this podcast, Logistics Management Group News Editor Jeff Berman interviews Chris Rogers, Head of Supply Chain Research for S&P Global Market Intelligence.

For March, the most recent month for which data is available, Port Tracker reported that import volume, for the ports covered in the report, came in at 1.93 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEU), down 1.4% compared to February and up 18.7% annually, a period when Asian export activity was slow on the heels of Lunar New Year shutdowns, it noted.   

February imports, at 2.44 million TEU (Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units) increased 21% compared to February 2023. And when taking into account the timing of the Lunar New Year, coupled with the impact of ongoing Red Sea and Panama Canal disruptions, the firm explained that U.S.-bound imports over the first two months of 2024, at 5.04 million TEU, posted a 14% annual increase over 2023’s 4.40 million TEU, with 2022 and 2021, at 5.21 million TEU and 5.09 million TEU, respectively.

In this podcast, Jeff Berman, Group News Editor for Logistics Management and the Peerless Media Supply Chain Group interviews Evan Armstrong, President of Brookfield, Wisc.-based supply chain consultancy Armstrong & Associates.

February’s shipment reading, at 1.115, saw a 4.5% annual decrease, and February expenditures, at 3.225, were down 19.8% annually.

The new edition of the BlueGrace Logistics Confidence Index, which was recently issued by Tampa, Fla.-based non-asset-based 3PL BlueGrace Logistics, pointed to a relatively cautious outlook, as it relates to revenues and inventory management, among other factors.

Total estimated 2023 global 3PL market revenue was off 18.5% annually, coming in at $1.2 trillion. But even with that decline, the firm observed that this tally still represented a 25.3% increase, when compared to pre-pandemic 2019.

The report’s fourth quarter shipment index value, at 95.0, was down 10.9% compared to the third quarter and down 15.7% annually. On the spend side, the report observed that the fourth quarter reading, at 233.9, fell 13.5% annually and was down 1.4%, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter.

CBRE reported that the largest 100 industrial lease transactions in 2023 included 43 deals for 1 million square-feet (MSF) or more, which the firm describes as “megawarehouses.” This fell short of 2022’s record-high 63 deals and 2021’s strong 57 deals tally.  The average size of the top 100 leases came in at 986,744 square-feet, down from 2023’s record 1.07 MSF and the previous record set in 2021, at 1.05 MSF.

It is fair to say that the topic of inventory management has always had a permanent seat at the table, so to speak, when it comes to mapping out logistics and supply chain planning and operations processes. That theme became especially heightened, as we all well know, during the height of the pandemic nearly four years ago.