The transportation industry experienced a freight frenzy like no other last year. Following one of the most disruptive years in economic history, 2021 proved to be the rebound that the industry was hoping for as markets began to reopen with unprecedented goods demand and as COVID-19- related restrictions began to expire.
The resumption of consumer spending invigorated the logistics landscape with newfound opportunities. Shippers, still reeling from stock outages in 2020, largely adopted a just-in-case ordering strategy, which kept carriers busy too. In fact, outbound tender rejections averaged above 20% throughout 2021.
But the transportation market has cooled down significantly this year. Both truckload demand and tender rejection rates have been on a steady decline all year — rejection rates are just below 6% as of early September. Worse, the once inventory-short shippers now have to contend with stock surpluses.
Whether inflation, rising interest rates or other macroeconomic forces are to blame for stifled consumer spending is up for debate, but industry leaders appear to be hunkering down for further market sluggishness.
In partnership with FreightWaves, Echo Global Logistics asked shippers, carriers, and other logistics professionals in August to share their expectations for the upcoming year. The FreightWaves team collected survey data from 130 participants on capacity and load volume expectations, as well as consumer spending habits, company forecasts, budgeting and investment spend. These responses will also be compared to Echo’s survey conducted in August 2021.
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