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What pops into your head at the word “pirate”? For many, it’s Johnny Depp and Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Usually, our pirate imagery goes back to the scalawags of centuries gone [...]

Q: Why are the shipping rates so volatile? A: While there are several factors involved, The primary is market demand.  Traditionally from Dec through April for imports, especially from Asia to [...]

Q: What is a freight forwarder? A: Freight forwarding is a service used by companies that deal in international or multi-national import and export. While the freight forwarder doesn’t [...]

Furniture Market picking up? It is official, the January 2011 Las Vegas Market furniture trade show sent some positive signals within the Industry.  It’s a great family activity [...]

We are just coming out of the peak season, as that traditionally starts late fall through early spring. Last year, most carriers in the westbound export market to Asia implemented numerous rate [...]

In trying to make sense of recent sea freight and air cargo rate fluctuations, we’ve gathered information from several sources and made the following observations:1) Rates are going up and [...]

For today's blog, I thought we'd do something a little bit different. The artificial intelligence (AI) craze has hit. Despite all those warnings we got from movies in the 80's and 90's, everyone [...]

Shippers are waiting for someone to do something about the Iran-backed Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, which have escalated, disrupted international shipping, and catapulted freight [...]

Importers can thank goodness that their freight rates and international shipping costs are generally on par with pre-COVID levels and behaviors. To say the astronomically high freight rates and [...]

Freight rates, particularly Asia to U.S. West Coast (USWC) freight rates, have increased by more than 100% since June. That's not too surprising, since we're in the peak season, and freight rates [...]

So some have deemed to tell you there is no peak season this year? Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. There is, indeed, a peak [...]

It's no secret that the international shipping industry, even for all the supply chain disruptions and bottlenecks, did very well during the pandemic. There was a shipping demand boom, but now [...]

Shippers, get ready for the freight rate war saga of the ocean carriers to continue. Perhaps the biggest reason for shippers to pay attention to what's happening with carriers is because it [...]

Importers, and shippers in general, had a rough couple of years when it came to international shipping after the pandemic hit. But the landscape, or ocean-scape, looks quite different now. [...]

The Wall Street Journal headlined an article yesterday with "Ocean Shipping Rates Have Plunged 60% This Year." Costas Paris reports in the article: "The cost to ship a 40-foot container from [...]

Both the Loadstar and the Journal of Commerce (JOC) report the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) and International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) have broken media silence on their [...]

There are many world events affecting current and upcoming ocean freight rates. Sanctions on Russia with its aggression on Ukraine obviously affects cargo movement to and from that region, and [...]

Keith Wallis reported in a Journal of Commerce article this week that South Korea's Fair Trade Commission fined ocean freight carriers over $80 million for collaborating in setting freight [...]

Three-month-plus transit times for sailings goods across the Pacific? After more than a year of severe congestion at U.S. ports, especially at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and along [...]