Shipping: Which Shippers Are Hit Hardest By Exploding Costs?

Because our readers are smart, funny, and good looking they are a step or two ahead of me on the headline question. Of course it's the Malaysian or Singaporean exporter who only sends out one 40 ft. box per month. Read on for details.

From the FT's Claire  Jones at FT Alphaville, August 26: 

 

Who’s really feeling the shipping cost squeeze?

The bulk of the burden is falling on smaller customers as shipping freight rates decommoditise.

Another week, another surge in shipping costs. But just how big has the surge been? It all depends on who you ask. Over the past seven days, the price of taking a 40ft container-full of goods from the Far East to the US West Coast has, according to shipping cost calculators Xeneta, risen by another 3.6 per cent. Over the course of August prices are up a shade under 20 per cent. 

Xeneta says the average Transpacific rate is now $7,574. Other data outfits, however, such as Freightos, say the cost to transport goods from China to the West Coast has been as high as $15,800 over the past month. 

That’s an almighty gap. Yet neither figure is necessarily wrong....

....MUCH MORE 

And August 25th: 

Supply chains are a mess. So how come trade is booming?