Make sure you understand how North American transportation rates affect your business performance in 2021. Our transportation management experts share their forecasts, industry analysis and actionable guidance to support your strategy for Parcel, LTL, Truckload and International transportation.
Companies across North America are seeing transportation costs rise as a percentage of their total costs. That’s driving a need for many business leaders to closely oversee their transportation spending.
Expect elevated truckload shipping costs to continue through the second quarter of 2021. Fuel prices, capacity demands and carrier operating costs all add pressure on truckload shipping costs into the busy summer season for fresh produce and highway travel.
Pendulum swings in less-than-truckload transportation are fairly common.
When freight volumes are low and carrier capacity is high – as we experienced in 2020 – there is opportunity to seize gains in cost and service. As volumes spike and fill available capacity, LTL freight shipping rates swing up and service tends to dip.
In 40 years in this business, I have never experienced a pendulum swing like this.
Coming off a year that found both carriers and shippers struggling to piece together logistics and transportation strategies in an extremely disruptive environment, many companies came into 2021 with the hope that things might get easier in the New Year.
Consumers’ insatiable demand for e-commerce purchases, as well as rapidly deployed vaccine distribution will continue to create ripples across all transportation modes in the first half of 2021 and cause continued international shipping rates challenges.
Consumer demand shifts that accelerated during 2020 will have ongoing effects across the transportation marketplace, including continued capacity constraints in the less-than-truckload (LTL) market. Expect 2021 rate increases to reflect these pressures.
The unpredictability that characterized most of 2020 continues to make itself felt in many areas of business, including the truckload market. Spot rates are plateauing, but at a rate that’s about 30 percent higher than a year ago. Similarly, rates for flat bed shipments are up about 10 percent compared to a year ago, while rates for refrigerated truckloads have increased 20 percent during the same period.
When combined with ongoing supply chain impacts of COVID-19, the peak season for International transportation put more power into the hands of vessel operators.
The COVID-19 outbreak created an entirely new world for the small package industry, especially when it comes to the hidden costs that come with annual increases in parcel rates.
