Managing Holiday Deadlines, Port Congestion With Deadline Tracking
With the holidays quickly approaching, conditions continue to deteriorate at US gateway ports. Congestion has already significantly impacted ports around the country, particularly along the west coast, subsequently driving up trucking rates and drastically slowing delivery times. To be expected around the holidays, surging ocean freight demand is placing the system under even greater stress. This year, however, this has been compounded by equipment shortages, overbooks, blank sailings, and existing port congestion.
To combat these obstacles, we’ve added a new Deadline Tracking feature to our SiShips software. With Deadline Tracking, you can better predict how your shipments will be impacted by potential delays. This knowledge will allow you to make informed decisions for your business during the holidays. Read on to learn more about how to use this new feature.
Holiday Port Congestion
With holiday shoppers choosing e-commerce options over in-person ones, shippers are being tested to keep up with demand. West coast ports, in particular, are experiencing drastic increases in capacity: The Port of Long Beach handled 806,603 TEUs in October, breaking its previous record that had only been set in September.
Unsurprisingly, major online retailers like Amazon are a key factor in driving this surge: last month, 79% of Amazon’s shipments arrived via Los Angeles/Long Beach. Overall, e-commerce sales have increased 19.9% year on year, and experts predict sales in November and December alone will see a 33% year on year surge.
How to Use Deadline Tracking for Your Shipments
Ocean cargo shipments can be complex, particularly with the many added factors currently at play. Our Deadline Tracking was designed to simplify the experience and provide you with valuable knowledge.
Incorporated into your shipment’s timeline, the Deadline Tracking feature will display in red if the ETA will not meet your deadline. Note that if there is no door delivery option, the deadline will use the last port date.
Once your freight has shipped, the deadline will transfer from quotes and bookings into tracking automatically. Once the delivery is completed, the deadline will show the difference (+/-) between delivery and desired deadline.
Don’t have a deadline? Just tick the box next to “Any Deadlines” to skip this step.
We know managing shipments can be difficult. That’s why we used our extensive years in freight forwarding to develop SiShips. With this software, quoting, tracking, and planning are made easy, so you can spend less time worrying about freight forwarding and more time improving your business.
Contact us today to learn more about how SiShips can simplify your shipping experience.
