In light of Valentine’s Day this week, we here at Zepol wanted to take a look at how much ‘love’ will be given out this year compared to last year. Using Zepol’s TradeIQ Import, we looked at imports of Valentine-themed gifts, from cards, to stuffed animals and candy. The results? This holiday is looking very optimistic! Container imports of Valentine gifts increased by over 10% this holiday season compared to last year. Let the graph below illustrate for itself.

We know you’re just dying to find out, where is all of this ‘love’ coming from? The majority, not surprisingly, is sourced from China. In fact, more than 70% of Valentine-themed gifts come from China. Smaller amounts of goods (mostly apparel) are sourced from Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Nicaragua.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Zepol!

According to Zepol's online database of U.S. ocean imports, TradeIQ™, imports in November have reached the lowest levels the United States has seen since February. November TEUs (twenty-foot-containers) decreased 12.8% from October and 15.2% from November of last year. There was a significant slump in imports from Asian countries by 18% from November of 2011, but European countries had only a slight dip in imports by 6.5%.

It's unique to see U.S. imports so low in November, but then again, with Hurricane Sandy torturing the east coast and an eight-day labor strike at the Ports of L.A. and Long Beach, the last month and a half has seen some unexpected and disrupting events...So the real question is will December continue the downward slope we've seen since July, or rise above the mediocre November?

Methodology:
Zepol’s data is derived from Bills of Lading entered into U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). This information represents the number of House manifests entered by importers of waterborne vessel goods. This is the earliest indicator for trade data available for the previous month’s import activity. The data excludes shipments from empty containers, excludes shipments labeled as Freight Remaining on Board (FROB), and may contain other data anomalies.       

Two critical events have recently filled up capacity on U.S. air imports, yet the demand is expected to rise even further. Cathy Roberson, Senior Analyst with Transport Intelligence, states that:

“The timing of the potential US East/Gulf coast ports strike and the launch of various high tech gadgets from Apple, Samsung, Amazon, Microsoft and others, make for interesting times for those shippers, forwarders and transportation providers operating in the US market. Capacity concerns are rising as rates are expected to increase.”

With the ILA port strikes on hold until December, pressure eases for retailers that were struggling to secure on-time arrivals of holiday shipments. Conversely, demand in the U.S. for the iPhone 5 has put pressure on the amount of air cargo space available.

Roberson also states that air cargo providers have reduced capacity; citing that UPS and FedEx have both decreased air networks. These two events combined will likely amount to an increase in the cost of air cargo by $5 per kilogram. As the cost of air cargo has already seen an increase of 7% this year compared with last year, how far are importers willing to go? Below is a graph of year-over-year changes for air imports and prices; prices have seen a steeper rise compared with overall imports.

 

For the first six months of 2012, the U.S. has imported over $1.1 trillion worth of products; that's an increase of 6% from the first half of 2011. Below is a breakdown of the top 10 products imported to the United States so far for 2012. Imports of oil and passenger vehicles top the list, respectively, for the most imported products into the United States. Electronics and pharmaceutical products also made it into our list of top 10 imports. Check back soon for our post on the top U.S. exports!
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