Global Logistics Market Update: 26 October, 2021

Across all regions for sea freight, air freight and final mile services, we are continuing to see logistics supply chains at full or over capacity.

Macro Update:

The logistics market is experiencing a high demand of shipments to and from the United States of America, causing delays on the movement of shipments from Europe to the Americas. Contingency plans are in place, including plans to add extra capacity to carrier networks to move delayed shipments and meet future demand. Many carriers locally are meeting demand by hiring hundreds of new staff members in anticipation of the peak season.

Huge truck shortages for hauliers in the UK are continuing to cause increased prices for truck movements within the UK.

Due to the record number of recent COVID-19 cases in the UK, we are foreseeing potential delayed final mile deliveries to the UK and potential impacts on our local facilities. We will be keeping a close eye on how the situation progresses and keep you informed accordingly.

Several of Australia’s regions will be going out of lockdown in the coming weeks, which will allow free movement of people within the country. This will help to improve local operations in-country.

Service Updates:

Australia

Fulfillment services: Operational and as per SLAs.

 

Inbound Receiving services: Operational and as per SLAs.

 

Shipping services: Australia post continues to experience disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. You can read more about domestic delivery times across Australia’s regions here.

 

Direct injection International services at this time: No delays

 

International to postal providers: Australia Post is continuing to experience significant delays internationally, especially when sending post to China, and Canada. This is due to continued limited air freight capacity. 

 

Opening up of local borders to allow free movement as well as increased hiring of staff in the run up to the peak season should improve delays.

 

US

Fulfillment services: Remain unaffected by delays and same day dispatch is being met as per SLAs.

 

Inbound Receiving services: Operational and as per SLAs.

 

Shipping services: 

 

FedEx: To support capacity management and ensure that high priority Express shipments continue to move through their network, FedEx has temporarily suspended their International Economy Freight (IEF) service until further notice. 

 

In addition, they have extended the quoted transit times for some of their services to and from the Americas. To provide customers with accurate transit times reflecting the contingency set up and ensure service reliability, they have created a table here showing the changes to delivery times to certain services. 

UK

Fulfillment services: Operational and as per SLAs.

 

Inbound Receiving services: Operational and as per SLAs.

 

COVID-19: If cases continue to soar within the UK, we will have to consider how a potential lockdown could cause disruption to supply chains. We will be following the situation closely and will continue to update as it unfolds.

 

Yodel and Royal Mail services: We are not seeing any issues for domestic shipments at this time for Express and postal providers. In response to the incoming peak season Yodel will be hiring 4,300 additional employees to keep up with the festive demand.

 

DHL Parcel UK: The UN Climate Change Conference UK 2021, COP26, takes place on Sunday 31st October to Friday 12th November in Glasgow. Security measures and restrictions for the event will be in place from Sunday 24th October which will cause service disruption for the entire period, impacting postcodes: G1, G2, G3, G11 and G61.

 

EU

Fulfillment services: Operational and as per SLAs.

 

Inbound Receiving services: Operational and as per SLAs.

 

Canada

Fulfillment services: Operational and as per SLAs.

 

Inbound Receiving services: Operational and as per SLAs.

PSS

As we are currently within the Peak Season, surcharges are in effect. However to ease financial burdens on our customers, we pass on all surcharges at cost.

 

You can read more about current surcharges in place on our Helpsite here.



Freight Forwarding Update:

 

Sea freight - Asia to north America

 

Space: Heavily congested, pricing is still at records high but slowly coming down.

 

Booking: We recommend booking 4 weeks in advance.

 

Sea Freight - Asia- Europe

 

Space: Highly congested, with pricing remaining high.

 

Booking: Our recommendation is to book 4-5 weeks in advance.

 

Sea Freight - Asia - Australia

Space: Space is becoming slightly more manageable, prices remain high but are steadily decreasing.

 

Booking: We recommend booking 4 weeks in advance

 

Direct injection

B360 has its own Direct Injection network that runs from Sydney to the US, Hong Kong to Europe, Hong Kong to Australia and Hong Kong to the US. These channels are still very reliable, with transit times on average being 4-8 days, we see no changes as per the SLAs at this time.

 

To learn more about any of our updates or to make carrier changes, please reach out to us today.