Section
Sourcing, fulfillment, and the logistics of getting stuff to shelves.
8 articles
The first nearshoring rush was about announcements. The second wave, now underway, is about getting the contracts, the labor, and the ports to actually line up.
Zara's parent keeps pulling away from the pack on inventory turns and margin. The operational system behind it is now so far ahead that the gap may be structural.
After more than a year of routing around the Horn of Africa, most carriers have settled into a new normal. Retailers are paying for it in inventory carrying cost, not freight.
A turbulent 2024 in Bangladesh, plus tightening compliance regimes in the EU and US, has pushed apparel buyers to fewer, larger vendor relationships. The trade-offs are showing.
We compared inventory turn velocity across major US and EU retailers' most recent disclosures. The improvements are concentrated in fewer places than the headlines suggest.
Eighteen months after the first big nearshoring announcements, the public progress reports are starting to land. We look at who hit timelines, who slipped, and what changed about the financial case.
The October port strike was short. The contingency plans were not. We look at the routing changes, inventory cushions, and supplier conversations that stuck after the immediate disruption ended.
Spot rates from Asia to North Europe spent the first half of 2024 north of $4,000 per FEU. Shippers are now planning as if those levels are structural, not temporary.