According to a Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Hackett Associates, U.S. import cargo volumes at major ports have peaked for 2023
An NRF press statement quoted Jonathan Gold, vice president of the NRF for supply chain and customs policy, as saying that although cargo volumes would continue to be strong, they will not exceed the expectations of prior estimates. Jonathan Gold's comments were included in the NRF press statement.
This discovery was made by Ben Hackett, the founder of Hackett Associates. It was included in the same press release in which he made the observation that shipping businesses had been slowing down their ships in order to reduce capacity. The prices of freight have gone down as a direct result of this, and ships are now leaving port with loads that are much less than full as a result of this as well.
The press announcement also included concrete numbers, which revealed that cargo volumes in August were 1.96 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEU), which was a rise from July but a fall of 13.5% compared to August 2017 levels. This was proved by the fact that there was a decrease in volume from August 2017 levels to August 2018 levels. Cargo traffic is expected to reach 1.94 million TEU in the month of October, which is a reduction of 3.1% when compared to the same month in the previous year. In the meantime, it is projected that there would be an increase of between 7.5% and 8.9% in comparison to November and December of the year before.
The decline in cargo volumes was also consistent with the slowing in the increase in consumer expenditures seen in the second quarter of 2023, which was 1.8%, according to a press statement that was provided by the National Retail Federation. As a direct result of this development, the National Retail Federation has revised downward its prediction for the increase in Christmas retail sales, stating that it will most likely fall within the range of 4%-6%. This was done in order to account for the impact that this development has had.
