Retail imports expected to grow dramatically in first half of year
Imports at the nation’s largest retail container ports are expected to grow dramatically during the first half of 2021 as increased vaccination and continued in-store safety measures enable additional shopping options.
That’s according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates. The report just a few weeks after the NRF’s annual forecast, which estimates that 2021 retail sales will grow between 6.5% to 8.2% over last, totaling between $4.33 trillion and $4.4 trillion.
“NRF is forecasting what could turn out to be record sales growth in 2021, and retailers are importing huge amounts of merchandise to meet the demand,” stated NRF VP for supply chain and customs policy Jonathan Gold said. “The supply chain slowdown we usually see after the holiday season never really happened this winter, and imports are already starting to grow again.”
U.S. ports covered by Global Port Tracker handled 2.06 million twenty-foot equivalent units in January, the latest month for which final numbers are available. ) A TEU is one 20-foot container or its equivalent. That was down 2.3% from December as the busy holiday season came to an end. But with a 13% year-over-year increase, it was the busiest January since NRF began tracking imports in 2002 and the first time the month has ever topped the 2 million TEU mark.
While import numbers for both February and March are forecast to be significantly higher than normal, year-over-year comparisons are difficult because of the pandemic. February is traditionally the slowest month of the year as Asian factories close for Chinese New Year, but last year most remained closed into March because of the coronavirus, reducing numbers even further. This year, however, some remained open during the holiday in order to fill a surge in orders, and ships arriving at U.S. ports faced a backlog to unload. February results aren’t available yet, but the month was projected at 1.88 million TEU, up 24.4% over last year, while March is forecast at 1.98 million TEU, up 44.1%.
April is forecast at 1.9 million TEU, up 18.2% year-over-year; May at 1.92 million TEU, up 25.2%; June also at 1.92 million TEU, up 19.6%, and July at 2.02 million TEU, up 5.3%.
The first half of 2021 is forecast at 11.7 million TEU, up 23.3% from the same period in 2020, which experienced a major decline in imports due to COVID-19. Imports saw a total of 22 million TEU in 2020, up 1.9% from 2019’s 21.6 million TEU and beating the previous record of 21.8 million TEU recorded in 2018.
Global Port Tracker, which is produced for NRF by the consulting firm Hackett Associates, provides historical data and forecasts for the U.S. ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma on the West Coast; New York/New Jersey, Port of Virginia, Charleston, Savannah, Port Everglades, Miami and Jacksonville on the East Coast, and Houston on the Gulf Coast.