I wrote the following as an explanation to a friend about shipping delays (and the costs associated with it), it's relevant here...
several layers to ocean freight delays:
- ocean vessel sometimes having to do a 2 week quarantine at sea between ports that normally take 3-5 days (i.e. Singapore to Hanoi or Keelung to Osaka)
- surge of shipments before/after CNY
- surge of shipments before Golden Week (early May)
- most of ocean freight capacity is purchased in advance from cargo liner to large companies that have their own brand (Amazon, Target, any company that sells a ton of goods under a single brand), remaining capacity is sold to freight forwarders and the lowest on the totem pole are the ones that buy one or two containers on a vessel that holds 6000-10000+ containers...
- lack of empty containers outbound from the US (backlog from supply chain disruption from Spring 2020)
- port delays in the US due to COVID-19 related worker sickness, etc
shipments out of Japan are delayed on the outbound side by upwards of a month or more. to get a shipment out in a timely manner one has to resort to Less than Container Load (LCL) which is about 2-4x prices vs a year ago. typically motors will be Full Container Load (FCL) so those are impacted the most.
just think of air travel, but the majority of seats are booked in advance by travel agencies, and you and I fight over the remaining 20-30% of space based on who buys the most seats at a time.
add to that this current problem, and increased shipping costs + shipping lead times makes for scarce supply with the same demands, pricing going up is just a normal supply curve shift with associated price increases.
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/25/98112...e-company-says