Costco charters three container ships to transport cargoes themselves

The entrance to a Costco warehouse (Image: Costco Wholesale)

Costco - the fifth largest US retailer in the world - is the latest brand to try to solve the problem of shipping proactively, so as not to be completely dependent on shipping lines as in the past.

Costco revealed it has chartered three ships and chartered thousands of containers to move about 20% of its Asian imports over the next 12 months. The vessels have a carrying capacity of 800 to 1,000 TEUs.

Costco joins a host of other major retail brands such as Ikea, Walmart and Home Depot in chartering to deal with this year's supply chain crisis.

Freightos data shows that ocean freight shipments from China to the US now took an average of 73 days in September, 83% longer than September 2019.

Judah Levine, head of research at Freightos, warned last week: “Durations like those mean that, with the holidays rapidly approaching, goods that don’t ship soon may not make it in time".

Reliability of shipping schedule (Source: Sea-Intelligence)

Read more:

• A record of 56 container ships lined up at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach

Source: Phaata.com (According to Splash247)

Phaata.com - The first global logistics marketplace in Vietnam

► Where connecting Shippers & Forwarders fastest!