Shipping container costs have plummeted from their pandemic highs.
Container costs from China have nosedived from a peak of about $30,000 – $35,000 last year to $6,000 to $15,000, said a half dozen suppliers. That’s still up from pre-pandemic levels of about $2,500.
Recent data from Freightos said the cost to ship a 40-foot container from China to the U.S. West Coast is around $4,300, down almost 72 percent from mid-January.
Analysts expect that container costs should remain low into next year, reports Yahoo!Finance. There are fewer goods crossing the ocean, likely due to inflation, as people tighten their belts, Judah Levine of Freightos told Yahoo!Finance.
Unfortunately, other costs are still high and so manufacturers are experiencing little relief. One supplier said trucking company surcharges for fuel are at 34 percent. Raw goods prices in China have stabilized or dropped slightly but are still very high, said suppliers, and chip shortages persist.
“Margins are as slim as they’ve ever been,” said one vendor, echoing others. This is despite the lower shipping container costs and an increase in the price of car audio of about 20 percent over the past two years.
