<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The critical questions for early-stage software providers targeting the beneficial cargo owner community are these: what is the best path to reach shippers in a financing environment flush with cash? And can a startup get traction among customers quickly enough to drive revenue, or does it need outside investment to help it develop scale?</div>

The critical questions for early-stage software providers targeting the beneficial cargo owner community are these: what is the best path to reach shippers in a financing environment flush with cash? And can a startup get traction among customers quickly enough to drive revenue, or does it need outside investment to help it develop scale?

<div><div><img></div>The critical questions for early-stage software providers targeting the beneficial cargo owner community are these: what is the best path to reach shippers in a financing environment flush with cash? And can a startup get traction among customers quickly enough to drive revenue, or does it need outside investment to help it develop scale? Photo credit: Shutterstock.com.The persistent debate in the world of technology startups about the merits of fundraising versus bootstrapping, or self-financing, may seem to shippers like a technical discussion with little relevance to their business. But how startups fuel their expansion can have real-world implications on the...

The critical questions for early-stage software providers targeting the beneficial cargo owner community are these: what is the best path to reach shippers in a financing environment flush with cash? And can a startup get traction among customers quickly enough to drive revenue, or does it need outside investment to help it develop scale? Photo credit: Shutterstock.com. The persistent debate in the world of technology startups about the merits of fundraising versus bootstrapping, or self-financing, may seem to shippers like a technical discussion with little relevance to their business. But how startups fuel their expansion can have real-world implications on the level of service shippers receive — and for how long. The critical questions for early-stage software providers targeting the beneficial cargo owner community are these: what is the best path to reach shippers in a financing environment flush with cash? And can a startup get traction among customers quickly enough to drive revenue, or does it need outside investment to help it develop scale? There are pros and cons to both approaches. Companies that fundraise with venture capital groups get space to develop products that the market needs without worrying about day-to-day viability. That’s offset by the time it takes founders to raise money, and by the potential to get in a cycle of fundraising rather than honing the business for the benefit of shippers. Companies that bootstrap can spend their time building a business that must be necessarily profitable, however, they risk missing opportunities to solve higher-level industry problems that they might be able to tackle if free from the constraints of needing to be profitable. Go it alone or seek cash? “When we stopped fundraising we were able to concentrate much more on how to drive true profitable business and get closer to our customers,” said Cory Margand, CEO of the freight rate marketplace SimpliShip. “That being said, it also significantly delayed our product development.” And therein lies the rub when it comes to which path logistics software startups should take. Chasing venture capital money is impactful for a young tech company because it’s time-consuming, and can distract from the company’s ability to focus on product development and customer engagement. Second, it can signal that a company is headed down a certain track — that is, one defined by growing topline revenue and seeking additional rounds of funding. This model is unmistakably tied to venture capital (VC) firms, the ambitions of which are generally not to foster the steady advancement of a solid, profitable company, but to back a company with the potential to transform an industry. In other words, VCs are not looking for a profitable regional taxi company, they’re looking for Uber. “To me, it comes down to, are they operating a good business or are they not?” said Chris Kirchner, founder of the supply chain connectivity platform Slync. “And that gets lost in this idea of changing the world.” Color Kirchner unimpressed with the VC model. A recent arrival to the belly of the VC beast, the San Francisco area, Kirchner has resisted the advances of nearby Silicon Valley investors that he believes don’t know enough about logistics and are too concerned with top-line growth. An evaluation of the VC system "VCs want you to raise more money,” he said. “They show paper gains every time you raise, they acquire more of the company. VCs operate on greed, power, and fear, meaning money, control, and fear that they’ll miss out on the next $1 billion company. It's a power dynamic — because they have the cash, they think they have control. But cash is a commodity — there's a lot of people with a lot of money. We've raised $2.5 million, but there's no one investor with more than $400,000 in us. No one in the VC world period." Kirchner said the cycle of raising money to get to the next round, while tried and true in Silicon Valley, doesn’t serve logistics customers well. “That’s at the core of what’s wrong with the fundraising,” he said. “They get so lost in fundraising that they don’t ask what’s my revenue target. What’s going to help my customers? The only time revenue is brought up is, what do we need to get to our new round?" While Kirchner explored the VC route, he eventually turned them down. "I don’t want to get in this cycle of continually raising money,” he said. “I want to focus on my fiduciary duty and my customers. My customers don’t care if I raise another dime, and neither do my investors." Margand noted a similar experience: “Raising capital is extremely time-consuming and draining unless you have such a wide and close network or previous exits that ensure you can raise funds at the snap of your fingers. I also think that this is due to the fact that the typical seed investor now seems to be looking for more mature businesses with significant annual run rate, which makes it challenging.” There’s no doubt fundraising is a burden for founders, even those whose business plans revolve around multiple rounds of funding. As Ryan Petersen, CEO of the digital freight forwarder Flexport, put it to American Shipper in September 2016 when the company announced a $65 million Series B round of funding that was more than it had initially planned to seek, “fundraising was such a big pain, I didn’t want to do it again for awhile.” The company raised a Series C round, worth $110 million, a year later and then added another $100 million in strategic investment from the Chinese parcel giant SF Express in April 2018, six months after the Series C. Fundraising’s chic quality But there’s no doubt that fundraising brings a certain cache in the tech industry. As the serial technology entrepreneur Rand Fishkin phrased it on Twitter in August, “Make $10mm. Crickets. Raise $10mm. Everyone writes about you. You get invited to all the hot events. Your network goes crazy with congratulations. This is how we get a culture that trains founders to raise $$ > make $$.” In today’s environment, with VC groups itchng to invest in some undiscovered part of the logistics industry, Margand and Kirchner are the outliers. The vast majority of logistics startups have taken some money from VCs, whether in the form of a pre-seed, seed, or Series A, B, or C rounds. “More or less, it’s a math problem,” said Nina Luu, CEO and co-founder of the shipment management software startup Shippabo . “It depends on how big the market is, the go-to-market strategy. Whether the company is revenue- or growth-focused. And the question surrounding fundraising should be tied to what you decide your business strategy is.” Luu has had experiences on both sides of the fence. Shippabo has raised $950,000 in venture capital money, but she bootstrapped the previous company she founded, a home textile importer. “We had a discussion about whether to have fundraising or not, but ultimately decided against it,” she said. “At Shippabo, we’re a very software-focused company. The benefit of VC money is you can focus on product market fit. Building software takes time, and the buying process takes time. And shippers often have never bought software like ours before, so it’s like a new market. So how do we leverage a venture-backed business and empower users in a way that matters.” To Luu, fundraising allowed her company the space to grow into its market, and to develop that market from an internal talent and customer product fit perspective. “Recognizing that a lot of people have freight forwarding experience but have never been in software,” she said. “And recognizing the quality of revenue through product market fit, as opposed to gaining revenue to just stay alive.” VC community’s different objectives, economics For many observers of the flood of VC money into logistics, the avoidance of profitability is anathema to their experience running companies that had to yield profit. That’s a tough habit to break. “VC is based on hope and promise and the ability to generate revenue and growth,” said Jon Slangerup, CEO of American Global Logistics (AGL). “VC rewards the physical growth — not just revenue growth but infrastructure growth. As many people and points of location as possible. Create critical mass. It is a proven model. The trouble is, the success ratio is very low.” Slangerup, who took over at the top of AGL as part of a private equity investment group, also has experience on the VC side, having led a logistics startup in the early 2000s. In private equity, he said, it’s the opposite, with the focus on buying already successful businesses and making them better. It’s a model that Kirchner believes in as well. “The private equity space I think is great for entrepreneurship, because it’s responsible. They want companies that are generating profits." Indeed, the amount of private equity money invested into logistics technology far exceeds the venture capital money that has recently penetrated the market. Just this week, Summit Partners acquired the transportation management software (TMS) provider MercuryGate for an undisclosed sum, having already made an investment in Infor, which itself bought the global visibility and shipment execution software provider GT Nexus in 2015 for $675 million. In 2016, the private equity groups Blackstone and New Mountain Capital invested $575 million in the supply chain software provider JDA. Another capital group, TPG Capital, has invested in TMS provider Transporeon, supply chain design software company LLamasoft, and global trade management software provider BluJay Solutions. All these investments were made in established, profitable software providers. Of course, most of these companies were once startups, backed by their own crop of early stage investors. And many startups today see the end game as luring private equity groups into a $500 million to $1 billion investment. “Is it a bad idea not to be profitable?” Luu said. “VCs have their own economics they work through, but as an investor they try to understand your business. They’re trying to figure out whether they’re investing in something that can be that home run.” For early stage companies, the issue is first finding a product that drives a certain level of revenue and then scaling once that fit is found. “It’s hard to be profitable because you’re going to have to build on that software,” she said. “The revenue has to be repeatable and scalable. That’s about renewal rate, retention, and acquisition costs getting lower.” Luu cited an article in the tech journal SaaStr that she keeps close at hand for reference. “If you’re going with a software model, it’s hard to get to the first $2 million in annual revenue,” she said. “And the vast majority of these companies will fail between $2 million to $10 million. But once you hit $10 million, it’s about scaling it to $100 [million], because you’ve found that profit fit. And then it’s no longer about survival. It’s about how you get to $100 million and whether there are existing players who have entered your market.” A recent example of this scale through revenue is SwanLeap, a TMS provider recently named by Inc. magazine as the fastest growing private company in the United States. The company had $100 million in revenue in 2017 and CEO Brad Hollister told Inc. he expects to earn more than $400 million in 2018. He also said he turned down venture capital investment for a prior supply chain software startup because he didn’t think the product was going to be adopted by the industry. It’s an inexact science, and that makes for a difficult-to-navigate environment for shippers determining where to invest their precious logistics technology budgets. Shippers would do well to study not just the software capabilities of their chosen service providers, but also how much money those companies have raised and what that says about their ability to serve them and remain viable entities. Again, one path is not right for every startup. Luu, for instance, suggested that service provider startups might need a more continuous flow of VC funding because their requirements to scale often involve opening offices and hiring more customer-facing personnel, as opposed to pure software providers, who can concentrate the proceeds of their funding on engineering. Flexport’s experience Sanne Manders, Flexport’s chief operating officer, said on a recent podcast hosted by Radu Palamariu, managing director of Morgan Philips Executive Search, that the company has indeed split its more than $300 million in funding on building its tech and its global footprint. “In general, what do we do with the money?” he said. “Most of it goes into technology development. People think we subsidize freight, but we’ve never done that. It goes into building a warehousing infrastructure. Strategic investments with relatively short-term payback on the infrastructure side and a lot of long-term investment on the technology side.” The other thing to consider is the exit. While every company is for sale at the right price, in general, principles at profit-seeking logistics companies generally don’t eye quick exits. But it is a feature of technology startups to either be bought at a sizable multiple, or to land an initial public offering. And that means the amount of venture capital investment a startup takes on makes a difference. “Would you rather raise just $2 million in one round at a $8 million valuation and sell for $50 million a couple years later?” Margan said. “Or, raise $50 million through six rounds and only have the option to sell for, let's say $500 million plus? Realistically, in SaaS, you will need more than one round but maybe not. Either way, I'd much rather be the former.” It’s impossible to generalize, but Margand said a good formula for a logistics startup might start with a $1.5 million to $2 million seed round or Series A, followed 12 to 18 months later by a second round of $6 million to $10 million. “That, I think, is the sweet spot.” Contact Eric Johnson at eric.johnson@ihsmarkit.com and follow him on Twitter: @LogTechEric . ** RELATED STORIES: Blockchain primed to reduce shippers paper costs JOC Blockchain Explainer: Demystifying the buzz for the shipping industry

Logistics Technology News

Tech startups' differing funding paths hold risks, gains for BCOs

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">GenLogs is offering data on shipper drayage volumes, available carriers and asset location at the Port of Miami as part of a broadening of its highway sensor-based platform. </div>

GenLogs is offering data on shipper drayage volumes, available carriers and asset location at the Port of Miami as part of a broadening of its highway sensor-based platform.

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<div class="phx-topic">Transportation technology provider GenLogs is branching out from providing information on truckload capacity and carriers to doing the same in the US drayage market. GenLogs, whose primary business is helping freight brokers identify carriers they can work with on lanes where shipper-customers have volume, is looking to extend similar capability to drayage lanes from every major container port in the US through a product called “Port Intelligence.” GenLogs has established sensors at the Port of Miami and will add a second major port next month, CEO Ryan Joyce told the Journal of Commerce Friday. “We don’t need sensors right at gates to get the drayage data that unlocks all these capabilities for customers,” Joyce said. “We hope that this will help us springboard to signing all 300 ports in the United States as customers, as Port Intelligence gives them visibility into where cargo flows inland from each port, and which [beneficial cargo owners] may be better serviced by their port rather than a neighboring port.” GenLogs’ platform uses a nationwide network of its own roadside sensors that passively collect data on every passing truck and equipment pairing. Joyce said the nearly 1,000 sensors in the network collect about 10 million images of trucks each day on more than 285,000 unique for-hire truck carriers, including drayage carriers. The static sensors, on the sides of interstates, filter out private vehicles and only collect data on vehicles, not drivers. The company’s product combines data from its sensor network with other third-party datasets to track truck locations, equipment pairings and patterns. <h3>Initial users include larger customers </h3>The Port Intelligence features allow users to identify destinations where drayage volume is headed from US container gateways, a list of shippers and receivers tied to those moves, and a list of carriers operating on those lanes. GenLogs’ “Asset Locator” tools allow users to set alerts for specific containers and chassis based on an identifier. Joyce said GenLogs expects about one-third of its existing 60 customers to use Port Intelligence, mostly larger customers who also move drayage such as J.B. Hunt, CH Robinson, Ryder, Echo Global Logistics, NFI and Evans Transportation. He also said forwarders and drayage-specific third-party logistics providers have shown interest in the product since it launched Thursday. The company <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/truckload-visibility-vendor-gets-funding-to-expand-sensor-network-5936129">signaled its intent</a> to service drayage and intermodal nodes in February when it landed a $14.6 million funding round that would be directed, in part, to establish sensors at major US ports and in intermodal facilities. GenLogs’ foray into drayage is part of a broadening landscape of data in that historically overlooked segment of the container shipping industry. Along with a proliferation of tools designed to help drayage carriers operate more efficiently, a list that includes companies such as transportation management system provider PortPro, shippers and brokers can also get benchmark drayage rates on lanes nationwide using DrayRates, which launched in the first half of 2025. Contact Eric Johnson at <a href="mailto:eric.johnson@spglobal.com">eric.johnson@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

Transportation technology provider GenLogs is branching out from providing information on truckload capacity and carriers to doing the same in the US drayage market. GenLogs, whose primary business is helping freight brokers identify carriers they can work with on lanes where shipper-customers have volume, is looking to extend similar capability to drayage lanes from every major container port in the US through a product called “Port Intelligence.” GenLogs has established sensors at the Port of Miami and will add a second major port next month, CEO Ryan Joyce told the Journal of Commerce Friday. “We don’t need sensors right at gates to get the drayage data that unlocks all these capabilities for customers,” Joyce said. “We hope that this will help us springboard to signing all 300 ports in the United States as customers, as Port Intelligence gives them visibility into where cargo flows inland from each port, and which [beneficial cargo owners] may be better serviced by their port rather than a neighboring port.” GenLogs’ platform uses a nationwide network of its own roadside sensors that passively collect data on every passing truck and equipment pairing. Joyce said the nearly 1,000 sensors in the network collect about 10 million images of trucks each day on more than 285,000 unique for-hire truck carriers, including drayage carriers. The static sensors, on the sides of interstates, filter out private vehicles and only collect data on vehicles, not drivers. The company’s product combines data from its sensor network with other third-party datasets to track truck locations, equipment pairings and patterns. Initial users include larger customers The Port Intelligence features allow users to identify destinations where drayage volume is headed from US container gateways, a list of shippers and receivers tied to those moves, and a list of carriers operating on those lanes. GenLogs’ “Asset Locator” tools allow users to set alerts for specific containers and chassis based on an identifier. Joyce said GenLogs expects about one-third of its existing 60 customers to use Port Intelligence, mostly larger customers who also move drayage such as J.B. Hunt, CH Robinson, Ryder, Echo Global Logistics, NFI and Evans Transportation. He also said forwarders and drayage-specific third-party logistics providers have shown interest in the product since it launched Thursday. The company signaled its intent to service drayage and intermodal nodes in February when it landed a $14.6 million funding round that would be directed, in part, to establish sensors at major US ports and in intermodal facilities. GenLogs’ foray into drayage is part of a broadening landscape of data in that historically overlooked segment of the container shipping industry. Along with a proliferation of tools designed to help drayage carriers operate more efficiently, a list that includes companies such as transportation management system provider PortPro, shippers and brokers can also get benchmark drayage rates on lanes nationwide using DrayRates, which launched in the first half of 2025. Contact Eric Johnson at eric.johnson@spglobal.com .

Surface

Port News

Drayage

Trucking intelligence provider expands visibility product into drayage market

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The 90-day pause in tariffs was long enough for US importers to advance most of their cargo shipments by ocean, according to analysts.</div>

The 90-day pause in tariffs was long enough for US importers to advance most of their cargo shipments by ocean, according to analysts.

<div class="phx-topic">Frontloading from Asia to the US by ocean shippers appears to have sucked the demand out of the trans-Pacific air cargo business, with little sign of rising volume and rates before the pause on higher US tariffs expires in August. Data from air freight analyst Rotate shows capacity deployed on China and Hong Kong routes to the US is down slightly over the past four weeks at 36,000 metric tons. Frontloading of ocean freight and the sharp drop in e-commerce demand following a US clampdown on low-value Chinese imports have reduced the need for trans-Pacific air cargo. “While difficult to say exactly, we do see high levels of inventory combined with a relatively long lead up to the new tariff announcements which allowed shippers to plan ahead and choose a more cost-efficient method of transport,” said Jonathan Mellink, head of sales and marketing at Rotate. Online freight marketplace Freightos has drawn the same conclusions — with the low appetite for air freight evident in spot rates. The Freightos Air Index this week shows air cargo rates to the US from major trade partner origins were level with or slightly lower than just before an Aug. 1 extension to the 90-day tariff pause was announced in early July. A separate pause on higher tariffs on Chinese goods is due to expire Aug. 14. “For businesses shipping out of China, the 90-day tariff extension spurred a surge in ocean volumes and was likely long enough so that most frontloading ahead of August has been done by container,” said Judah Levine, head of research at online freight marketplace Freightos. “In the couple of weeks since President Donald Trump extended the reciprocal tariff deadline, we haven’t seen a surge in demand or upward pressure on inbound US air cargo rates from countries granted the extension,” Levine added. Freightos data shows rates from China to the US this week are $5.17 per kilogram, down 7% from early July and 3% lower year over year. While there may be a bump in volume and rates as the August deadline approaches, Levine said the lack of air freight demand reflected shippers’ expectations of de-escalations and deals, or possible further extensions to the tariff deadlines. <h3>Framework deals announced </h3>Mike Short, president of global forwarding at C.H. Robinson, said air freight remained an option for shippers looking to frontload before the new deadline, “but it all depends on their inventory needs and supplier readiness,” he told the Journal of Commerce. Many of the countries facing new tariff rates from Aug. 1 are manufacturing powerhouses in Asia, such as Thailand (36% tariffs), South Korea (25%) and Malaysia (25%). The levies will include air freight-friendly commodities such as pharmaceutical imports and semiconductors. Some framework deals have been made with the US. A deal reached recently with Vietnam will see tariffs set at 25% for US exports and 40% for any goods “transshipped” through the country en route to the US, while deals were reached with the Philippines and Indonesia this week setting tariffs at 19% — although no details have been revealed. While the tariffs on Asian countries might have some indirect benefit to the air cargo industry through frontloading, the loss of huge e-commerce volume still affects the trans-Pacific business directly. In 2024, e-commerce shipments accounted for close to 50% of China-to-US air freight volume, with the big Chinese platforms Temu and Shein filling dozens of freighters every day. But that spigot was turned off by President Donald Trump on May 2 with dramatic effect. The duty-free exemption for low-value imports from China valued at under $800 was eliminated, although that was followed on May 14 by a reduction of de minimis tariffs from 120% to 54%. Items sent via post from China to the US are now charged a flat fee of $100, regardless of value. China-US air cargo demand fell more than 30% in June year over year following a 28% drop in May. Data from Rotate for July shows China’s e-commerce exports to the US falling 44% year over year, even as e-commerce exports to all other countries recorded robust growth of nearly 50%. <h3>‘Precipitous fall’ in China-US e-commerce </h3>The effect of the US tariffs on China’s two main e-commerce platforms, Temu and Shein, has been significant. Market intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimates that from April to June, Temu’s US downloads fell 77% year over year and Shein’s were down 51%. Sensor Tower noted the “precipitous fall in app usage” could be tied to each company’s advertising spend in the US in June that for Temu was down 87% year over year and for Shein dropped 69%. Meanwhile, the ability to offset the e-commerce-driven drop in China-Europe air freight with growth in other markets was noted by Kuehne + Nagel CEO Stefan Paul on the forwarder’s <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/post-tariff-foreign-currency-headwinds-hit-kuehne-nagels-h1-q2-profit-6049005">first-half earnings call</a> with analysts Thursday. Paul said he was expecting a strong air cargo peak season later in the second half with “high single-digit growth” in volume in the fourth quarter driven by increasing demand for perishables, semiconductors and “hyperscalers” — IT equipment providing the cloud infrastructure that powers modern digital applications and services. Airlines are also increasing their focus on traditional cargo customers, with Cathay Pacific saying business has been booming. “We observed significant growth in tonnage from Southeast Asia and the Taiwan region to the Americas, driven by both general cargo and high-tech electronics,” Lavinia Lau, chief customer and commercial officer at the Hong Kong-based airline, said in a statement on the carrier’s June operations. Contact Greg Knowler at <a href="mailto:greg.knowler@spglobal.com">greg.knowler@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

Frontloading from Asia to the US by ocean shippers appears to have sucked the demand out of the trans-Pacific air cargo business, with little sign of rising volume and rates before the pause on higher US tariffs expires in August. Data from air freight analyst Rotate shows capacity deployed on China and Hong Kong routes to the US is down slightly over the past four weeks at 36,000 metric tons. Frontloading of ocean freight and the sharp drop in e-commerce demand following a US clampdown on low-value Chinese imports have reduced the need for trans-Pacific air cargo. “While difficult to say exactly, we do see high levels of inventory combined with a relatively long lead up to the new tariff announcements which allowed shippers to plan ahead and choose a more cost-efficient method of transport,” said Jonathan Mellink, head of sales and marketing at Rotate. Online freight marketplace Freightos has drawn the same conclusions — with the low appetite for air freight evident in spot rates. The Freightos Air Index this week shows air cargo rates to the US from major trade partner origins were level with or slightly lower than just before an Aug. 1 extension to the 90-day tariff pause was announced in early July. A separate pause on higher tariffs on Chinese goods is due to expire Aug. 14. “For businesses shipping out of China, the 90-day tariff extension spurred a surge in ocean volumes and was likely long enough so that most frontloading ahead of August has been done by container,” said Judah Levine, head of research at online freight marketplace Freightos. “In the couple of weeks since President Donald Trump extended the reciprocal tariff deadline, we haven’t seen a surge in demand or upward pressure on inbound US air cargo rates from countries granted the extension,” Levine added. Freightos data shows rates from China to the US this week are $5.17 per kilogram, down 7% from early July and 3% lower year over year. While there may be a bump in volume and rates as the August deadline approaches, Levine said the lack of air freight demand reflected shippers’ expectations of de-escalations and deals, or possible further extensions to the tariff deadlines. Framework deals announced Mike Short, president of global forwarding at C.H. Robinson, said air freight remained an option for shippers looking to frontload before the new deadline, “but it all depends on their inventory needs and supplier readiness,” he told the Journal of Commerce. Many of the countries facing new tariff rates from Aug. 1 are manufacturing powerhouses in Asia, such as Thailand (36% tariffs), South Korea (25%) and Malaysia (25%). The levies will include air freight-friendly commodities such as pharmaceutical imports and semiconductors. Some framework deals have been made with the US. A deal reached recently with Vietnam will see tariffs set at 25% for US exports and 40% for any goods “transshipped” through the country en route to the US, while deals were reached with the Philippines and Indonesia this week setting tariffs at 19% — although no details have been revealed. While the tariffs on Asian countries might have some indirect benefit to the air cargo industry through frontloading, the loss of huge e-commerce volume still affects the trans-Pacific business directly. In 2024, e-commerce shipments accounted for close to 50% of China-to-US air freight volume, with the big Chinese platforms Temu and Shein filling dozens of freighters every day. But that spigot was turned off by President Donald Trump on May 2 with dramatic effect. The duty-free exemption for low-value imports from China valued at under $800 was eliminated, although that was followed on May 14 by a reduction of de minimis tariffs from 120% to 54%. Items sent via post from China to the US are now charged a flat fee of $100, regardless of value. China-US air cargo demand fell more than 30% in June year over year following a 28% drop in May. Data from Rotate for July shows China’s e-commerce exports to the US falling 44% year over year, even as e-commerce exports to all other countries recorded robust growth of nearly 50%. ‘Precipitous fall’ in China-US e-commerce The effect of the US tariffs on China’s two main e-commerce platforms, Temu and Shein, has been significant. Market intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimates that from April to June, Temu’s US downloads fell 77% year over year and Shein’s were down 51%. Sensor Tower noted the “precipitous fall in app usage” could be tied to each company’s advertising spend in the US in June that for Temu was down 87% year over year and for Shein dropped 69%. Meanwhile, the ability to offset the e-commerce-driven drop in China-Europe air freight with growth in other markets was noted by Kuehne + Nagel CEO Stefan Paul on the forwarder’s first-half earnings call with analysts Thursday. Paul said he was expecting a strong air cargo peak season later in the second half with “high single-digit growth” in volume in the fourth quarter driven by increasing demand for perishables, semiconductors and “hyperscalers” — IT equipment providing the cloud infrastructure that powers modern digital applications and services. Airlines are also increasing their focus on traditional cargo customers, with Cathay Pacific saying business has been booming. “We observed significant growth in tonnage from Southeast Asia and the Taiwan region to the Americas, driven by both general cargo and high-tech electronics,” Lavinia Lau, chief customer and commercial officer at the Hong Kong-based airline, said in a statement on the carrier’s June operations. Contact Greg Knowler at greg.knowler@spglobal.com .

Maritime

Container Shipping News

Air Cargo Carriers News

Trans-Pacific

Air Cargo

Ocean frontloading cuts air freight demand on trans-Pacific

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Double-digit demand is expected to continue through the third quarter on the Asia-Europe trades, piling more pressure on terminals that have been overstretched for months.</div>

Double-digit demand is expected to continue through the third quarter on the Asia-Europe trades, piling more pressure on terminals that have been overstretched for months.

<div class="phx-topic">Shippers in North Europe are being warned to expect further delays and disrupted services during August and September when a wave of inbound containers from Asia arrive at already-congested gateway ports. Strong import demand in Europe over the past few months has kept ships full and volume growing in double digits; that demand is expected to continue through the third quarter, piling more pressure on the overstretched terminals. “The peak will be August and September, and we also expect a peak in congestion until it gets better in the fourth quarter,” said Michael Amri, global sea freight business development manager at Hellmann Worldwide Logistics. Hutchison Port Holdings Trust, the Singapore-listed port operator that controls Hutchison’s Hong Kong and mainland China port interests, said China’s exports to Europe in the second half of the year are set to continue the double-digit growth seen in the first half. “Growth in China’s exports to the European Union is expected to follow the same trajectory as seen in the first half of 2025, with exports to the EU in Q2 growing by 13% year on year,” the port operator said. Should the double-digit growth in volume materialize, the combined volume arriving in North Europe in August and September will top 2 million TEUs. “In terms of seasonality, July is typically the month wherein the most cargo is loaded from Far East to Europe, which means arrival into European ports in August and September,” Lars Jensen, CEO of Vespucci Maritime and a Journal of Commerce analyst, wrote <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7353298019477336065/">in a LinkedIn post</a> this week. “The lack of progress in removing port congestion in Europe is worrying seen in the light of this coming peak load of cargo,” Jensen added. North Europe’s gateway terminals have been struggling to get on top of often severe congestion for much of the year, with ships arriving outside scheduled windows causing berthing delays and full container yards delaying the offloading of cargo. <h3>Terminals heading for ‘code red’ summer </h3>Stefan Verberckmoes, senior shipping analyst at Alphaliner, said he was not optimistic that congestion would improve over the summer months, which was shaping up to be a “hot summer with code red for European container terminals.” Verberckmoes said most of the ports in North Europe that had reserve capacity were now fully operational, with the main problem at terminals being the long dwell times caused by late vessel arrivals. “The fact that some carriers compete by granting longer free time [for containers] of course only makes the problem of the terminal operators worse,” he said. A spokesperson for Hapag-Lloyd said none of its hub terminals in Europe were congested at the moment but acknowledged there could be knock-on effects in the coming months. Still, Destine Ozuygur, chief analyst at ocean visibility provider eeSea, said she did not see an imminent congestion crisis across North Europe and emphasized that not all terminals were affected. “London Gateway has been the most extreme, followed by Antwerp, then Hamburg and then Rotterdam,” Ozuygur told the Journal of Commerce. “While vessels and services are being impacted, it hasn’t put turnover across Europe in a chokehold,” she added. “Even a port like Rotterdam that has seen stubborn congestion is reporting healthy throughput in Q2 and has seen steady reliability improvement since January.” Ozuygur outlined the factors contributing to the persistent congestion in North Europe for much of the year. Ongoing vessel diversions around southern Africa have necessitated the deployment of larger-capacity vessels, she noted, which leads to longer berth stays and higher yard utilization. The longer transit times have also left room for more volatility and unpredictable delays. Schedule reliability data from eeSea, in which ships are considered late if they arrive one calendar day or more after the scheduled time, shows Asia-North Europe on-time performance falling from 42% in May to 29% in July. <div class="wrapper-narrow"><dynamic-object type="jocchartid" resource-id="fdd3215b-b33e-458b-ab68-3ad2be100c5e"></dynamic-object></div>On the land side, Ozuygur said some ports, such as Antwerp and Hamburg, are impacted by both high yard density and major barge delays. One of the major causes of the barge delays has been low water levels in European waterways that cause capacity restrictions. <h3>Cutting transshipment moves </h3>Ozuygur said carriers had the most flexibility in dealing with port congestion as they could use port swaps and port omissions or adjust their rotations to avoid bottlenecks. The Gemini Cooperation of Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd recently extended an Asia-Europe service to Denmark and Sweden, removing transshipment volume from Rotterdam and lowering overall container moves. Instead of unloading boxes in Rotterdam and transferring to a feeder ship to Aarhus in Denmark and Gothenburg in Sweden, a direct call at the ports turned three container moves into one. Mediterranean Shipping Co. is also sailing direct from Ecuador to St. Petersburg to avoid transshipment in the Benelux ports. Another option to ease congestion is carriers transferring containers from the overloaded deep-sea terminals into inland depots to reduce dwell times and free up space in yards that are full. But Ozuygur said ports and terminals were facing many factors that were simply out of their control. “The best they can do is maximize berth planning operations and whatever robust vessel forecasting solutions are available to them,” she said. Contact Greg Knowler at <a href="mailto:greg.knowler@spglobal.com">greg.knowler@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

Shippers in North Europe are being warned to expect further delays and disrupted services during August and September when a wave of inbound containers from Asia arrive at already-congested gateway ports. Strong import demand in Europe over the past few months has kept ships full and volume growing in double digits; that demand is expected to continue through the third quarter, piling more pressure on the overstretched terminals. “The peak will be August and September, and we also expect a peak in congestion until it gets better in the fourth quarter,” said Michael Amri, global sea freight business development manager at Hellmann Worldwide Logistics. Hutchison Port Holdings Trust, the Singapore-listed port operator that controls Hutchison’s Hong Kong and mainland China port interests, said China’s exports to Europe in the second half of the year are set to continue the double-digit growth seen in the first half. “Growth in China’s exports to the European Union is expected to follow the same trajectory as seen in the first half of 2025, with exports to the EU in Q2 growing by 13% year on year,” the port operator said. Should the double-digit growth in volume materialize, the combined volume arriving in North Europe in August and September will top 2 million TEUs. “In terms of seasonality, July is typically the month wherein the most cargo is loaded from Far East to Europe, which means arrival into European ports in August and September,” Lars Jensen, CEO of Vespucci Maritime and a Journal of Commerce analyst, wrote in a LinkedIn post this week. “The lack of progress in removing port congestion in Europe is worrying seen in the light of this coming peak load of cargo,” Jensen added. North Europe’s gateway terminals have been struggling to get on top of often severe congestion for much of the year, with ships arriving outside scheduled windows causing berthing delays and full container yards delaying the offloading of cargo. Terminals heading for ‘code red’ summer Stefan Verberckmoes, senior shipping analyst at Alphaliner, said he was not optimistic that congestion would improve over the summer months, which was shaping up to be a “hot summer with code red for European container terminals.” Verberckmoes said most of the ports in North Europe that had reserve capacity were now fully operational, with the main problem at terminals being the long dwell times caused by late vessel arrivals. “The fact that some carriers compete by granting longer free time [for containers] of course only makes the problem of the terminal operators worse,” he said. A spokesperson for Hapag-Lloyd said none of its hub terminals in Europe were congested at the moment but acknowledged there could be knock-on effects in the coming months. Still, Destine Ozuygur, chief analyst at ocean visibility provider eeSea, said she did not see an imminent congestion crisis across North Europe and emphasized that not all terminals were affected. “London Gateway has been the most extreme, followed by Antwerp, then Hamburg and then Rotterdam,” Ozuygur told the Journal of Commerce. “While vessels and services are being impacted, it hasn’t put turnover across Europe in a chokehold,” she added. “Even a port like Rotterdam that has seen stubborn congestion is reporting healthy throughput in Q2 and has seen steady reliability improvement since January.” Ozuygur outlined the factors contributing to the persistent congestion in North Europe for much of the year. Ongoing vessel diversions around southern Africa have necessitated the deployment of larger-capacity vessels, she noted, which leads to longer berth stays and higher yard utilization. The longer transit times have also left room for more volatility and unpredictable delays. Schedule reliability data from eeSea, in which ships are considered late if they arrive one calendar day or more after the scheduled time, shows Asia-North Europe on-time performance falling from 42% in May to 29% in July. On the land side, Ozuygur said some ports, such as Antwerp and Hamburg, are impacted by both high yard density and major barge delays. One of the major causes of the barge delays has been low water levels in European waterways that cause capacity restrictions. Cutting transshipment moves Ozuygur said carriers had the most flexibility in dealing with port congestion as they could use port swaps and port omissions or adjust their rotations to avoid bottlenecks. The Gemini Cooperation of Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd recently extended an Asia-Europe service to Denmark and Sweden, removing transshipment volume from Rotterdam and lowering overall container moves. Instead of unloading boxes in Rotterdam and transferring to a feeder ship to Aarhus in Denmark and Gothenburg in Sweden, a direct call at the ports turned three container moves into one. Mediterranean Shipping Co. is also sailing direct from Ecuador to St. Petersburg to avoid transshipment in the Benelux ports. Another option to ease congestion is carriers transferring containers from the overloaded deep-sea terminals into inland depots to reduce dwell times and free up space in yards that are full. But Ozuygur said ports and terminals were facing many factors that were simply out of their control. “The best they can do is maximize berth planning operations and whatever robust vessel forecasting solutions are available to them,” she said. Contact Greg Knowler at greg.knowler@spglobal.com .

Container lines

Asia-Europe

International ports

Wave of Asian boxes to hit congested North Europe ports in August–September

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The carrier announced in March it would spend $20 billion over the next four years to significantly bolster its logistics presence in the US, including expanding its US-flag fleet and increasing capacity at key US ports.</div>

The carrier announced in March it would spend $20 billion over the next four years to significantly bolster its logistics presence in the US, including expanding its US-flag fleet and increasing capacity at key US ports.

<div class="phx-topic">CMA CGM said Thursday it has reflagged its 9,300-TEU container ship Phoenix under the US flag, the first of four ships that will be so flagged this year as the carrier looks to triple the size of its US fleet to 30 over the next four years. The reflagging of the Phoenix — the largest container vessel to ever sail under the US flag, occurred in Charleston, CMA CGM said in a statement. The ship will be used on the carrier’s Indamex service that connects the US East Coast with India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The Marseille-based liner is the owner of the US-flag carrier American President Lines (APL). In March, following a White House meeting with President Donald Trump, Rodolph Saade, head of CMA CGM Group, <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/cma-cgm-to-invest-20-billion-in-us-shipping-ports-and-logistics-5957748">announced the company would spend $20 billion</a> over the next four years to significantly bolster its logistics presence in the US, including expanding its US-flag fleet and increasing capacity at key US ports. “By expanding our US-flagged fleet, we will create new jobs, support American exports, and help strengthen the nation’s maritime capabilities for years to come,” Adeline Franger Chouraqui, CEO of CMA CGM America, said in the statement. Each of the four vessels to be reflagged this year will have a capacity of 9,300 TEUs. The delivery of the four ships will allow CMA CGM to increase the number of American seafarers it employs by 50%, the carrier said. Contact Kevin Saville at <a href="mailto:kevin.saville2@spglobal.com">kevin.saville2@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

CMA CGM said Thursday it has reflagged its 9,300-TEU container ship Phoenix under the US flag, the first of four ships that will be so flagged this year as the carrier looks to triple the size of its US fleet to 30 over the next four years. The reflagging of the Phoenix — the largest container vessel to ever sail under the US flag, occurred in Charleston, CMA CGM said in a statement. The ship will be used on the carrier’s Indamex service that connects the US East Coast with India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The Marseille-based liner is the owner of the US-flag carrier American President Lines (APL). In March, following a White House meeting with President Donald Trump, Rodolph Saade, head of CMA CGM Group, announced the company would spend $20 billion over the next four years to significantly bolster its logistics presence in the US, including expanding its US-flag fleet and increasing capacity at key US ports. “By expanding our US-flagged fleet, we will create new jobs, support American exports, and help strengthen the nation’s maritime capabilities for years to come,” Adeline Franger Chouraqui, CEO of CMA CGM America, said in the statement. Each of the four vessels to be reflagged this year will have a capacity of 9,300 TEUs. The delivery of the four ships will allow CMA CGM to increase the number of American seafarers it employs by 50%, the carrier said. Contact Kevin Saville at kevin.saville2@spglobal.com .

CMA CGM reflags vessel in first move to boost size of US fleet

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Volumes from Oceania to the US East Coast have grown steadily during the past five years, with this June recording the most imports ever for a single month.</div>

Volumes from Oceania to the US East Coast have grown steadily during the past five years, with this June recording the most imports ever for a single month.

<div class="phx-topic">Mediterranean Shipping Co. will launch a new direct weekly service between the US East Coast and Oceania in February, boosting total monthly sailings on the small but expanding trade lane by approximately one-quarter. The standalone service, announced Wednesday, will be called the Eagle Service and serve several ports in Australia and New Zealand, with additional stops through the Panama Canal. It will include 11 vessels, but MSC declined to comment on how much capacity the service will bring to the trade. The full rotation includes Philadelphia, Savannah, Freeport, Rodman, Papeete, Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Tauranga, Rodman and Cristobal, before returning to Philadelphia. Volumes from Oceania to the US East Coast have grown steadily during the past five years. Between 2020 and 2024, data from PIERS shows the compound annual growth rate for USEC volumes from Oceania was 5.2%, rising to 108,198 TEUs in 2025 from 84,120 TEUs in 2020. PIERS is a sister product of the Journal of Commerce within S&amp;P Global. US imports to the East Coast from Oceania reached an all-time high for a single month in June, with 10,384 TEUs, up 6.3% year over year. April 2025 is the only other month when US imports from Oceania have exceeded 10,000 TEUs, PIERS data shows. Through the first half of 2025, Maersk has had the largest presence among carriers on the USEC-Oceania trade lane, with CMA CGM and MSC coming in second and third place, respectively. Maersk’s first-half imports from Oceania to the US East Coast alone exceeded the total TEUs carried on the trade by CMA CGM and MSC individually. Maritime intelligence provider eeSea shows four services consistently present on the trade lane since 2022, averaging about 13 to 14 sailings per month for the first seven months of 2025. Contact Laura Robb at <a href="mailto:Laura.Robb@spglobal.com">laura.robb@spglobal.com</a>.  </div>

Mediterranean Shipping Co. will launch a new direct weekly service between the US East Coast and Oceania in February, boosting total monthly sailings on the small but expanding trade lane by approximately one-quarter. The standalone service, announced Wednesday, will be called the Eagle Service and serve several ports in Australia and New Zealand, with additional stops through the Panama Canal. It will include 11 vessels, but MSC declined to comment on how much capacity the service will bring to the trade. The full rotation includes Philadelphia, Savannah, Freeport, Rodman, Papeete, Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Tauranga, Rodman and Cristobal, before returning to Philadelphia. Volumes from Oceania to the US East Coast have grown steadily during the past five years. Between 2020 and 2024, data from PIERS shows the compound annual growth rate for USEC volumes from Oceania was 5.2%, rising to 108,198 TEUs in 2025 from 84,120 TEUs in 2020. PIERS is a sister product of the Journal of Commerce within S&P Global. US imports to the East Coast from Oceania reached an all-time high for a single month in June, with 10,384 TEUs, up 6.3% year over year. April 2025 is the only other month when US imports from Oceania have exceeded 10,000 TEUs, PIERS data shows. Through the first half of 2025, Maersk has had the largest presence among carriers on the USEC-Oceania trade lane, with CMA CGM and MSC coming in second and third place, respectively. Maersk’s first-half imports from Oceania to the US East Coast alone exceeded the total TEUs carried on the trade by CMA CGM and MSC individually. Maritime intelligence provider eeSea shows four services consistently present on the trade lane since 2022, averaging about 13 to 14 sailings per month for the first seven months of 2025. Contact Laura Robb at laura.robb@spglobal.com . 

MSC to launch new USEC-Oceania weekly service in February

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The world of LTL is slow to embrace change. Business anachronisms permeate current supply chain processes. These vestiges of the way things used to work define the LTL freight transportation procurement process of many modern shippers.David Knuth, logistics specialist at IEWC, a global supplier of cable and wire based in Wisconsin, is happy to have modernized the RFP process, automating the entire LTL bidding procedure with Bid$ense, SMC³’s automated truckload and LTL freight transportation sourcing solution. But when prompted, he can still recall what once was.In his previous job, a large part of his duties were consumed by creating an intermodal bid package for carriers. In a spreadsheet, Knuth detailed the company’s volumes lane by lane, taking care to delete any errant keystrokes or misleading data. He would then email out the information to each carrier, taking time to respond to detailed technical questions about the spreadsheet data. Finally, he had to compile all the results, create an algorithm that would compare the carriers on each lane, and award the business.“It was a huge undertaking. It took about four months to do,” Knuth said of the old process. “It was almost a full-time job for that part of the year, every year.”In his new job at IEWC, he sat down with Bid$ense on day one and was amazed at the capabilities. Knuth had never before used a bid tool. SMC³’s latest versions of Bid$ense automate the process even further, taking truckload and LTL RFPs entirely online. The tool draws on RFP best-practices protocols to streamline the bidding communication process, enabling bidding carriers to respond accurately and promptly to shipper requests. The solution also does all the distribution work automatically, electronically submitting shipper bid data to carriers based on their actual service capabilities and performance records. Carriers are alerted with timely prompts for RFP deliverables, so shippers aren’t waiting by the phone for responses.Another benefit of automating the process is the data-cleansing assistance. When Knuth sent spreadsheets to carriers, data errors might cloud the bidding process; he might have to resend data or simply accept a price that did not truly reflect the costs of doing business. Data cleansing is incredibly beneficial, he said.The spreadsheet technique also made bidding analysis an onerous task. Since Bid$ense automates and streamlines the entire RFP process, intensive examination is now simple. SMC³ knows that each bid has more than one best outcome. With uniform responses from each carrier, shippers can quickly rank results and create an unlimited quantity of what-if scenarios to make the optimal procurement decision.Jesse Burnett of Central Garden &amp; Pet experiences many of the same benefits. Founded in 1980, Central Garden &amp; Pet has spent the last three decades growing from a small garden supply company to a provider of a range of products from dog chews and bird seed to soil supplements and natural insecticides. For much of its life, the company shipped these disparate goods via LTL and truckload carriers to retailers throughout the country, relying on each business unit to negotiate directly with their freight transportation providers. This arrangement worked fairly well for a small company, but as Central Garden &amp; Pet expanded, leadership decided to consolidate decision making.Burnett helped centralize the transportation decision making in 2015 with SMC³’s Bid$ense. Before Bid$ense, every business unit operated independently as far as negotiating with carriers.“There were a lot of different things just floating around,” he said. “We didn’t have master agreements in place; no national pricing at all. The pricing from carriers was just all over the place, depending on where you were.”The transformations he saw with Bid$ense were immediate. Burnett has been using the tool about every other year since its implementation at the company. Central Garden and Pet’s $19.6 million 2019 LTL bid saved the company just more than 9 percent when compared to its historical average. For Burnett, though, bid automation extends far beyond savings.“We knew that we weren’t getting the best pricing offer from our carriers just because nothing was centralized,” he continued. “We knew that if we combined everything from all these business units and paired it with one corporate offering, then it would drive some cost benefit with it.”When the company initially decided to centralize bid procurement, executives researched a number of different methodologies and technologies. In the end, though, Burnett found that Bid$ense was both widespread and well known, and that his carrier partners already knew how to use the application. Burnett also highlighted the data-cleansing process as a major benefit, saying the rigorous process ensures that carriers always return the best price.“It definitely has helped drive savings,” he said. “Any time you go out there and you drive that competitiveness with the carriers and they know they’re in a bid environment, it seems to sharpen their pencils.”Transportation procurement is an integral part of the modern supply chain. With Bid$ense, shippers can develop a strategic implementation plan that saves them time and money, but also helps them create strong relationships with their carrier partners. These carriers appreciate the solution’s data-cleansing process; when carriers receive a complete shipment history and future volume forecast, they don’t have to guess on pricing. Carriers that receive more data from shippers get a complete picture of that shipper’s freight, allowing them to accurately plan instead of simply preparing for the worst-case scenario. Clean data presented through an automated system can lead to both bigger shipment savings and a lasting partnership between carrier and customer.Whether customers are looking to streamline over-the-road transportation bidding by automating the RFP process or create an entirely new, centralized sourcing process, Bid$ense has the analytical horsepower to get the job done.SMC³ 2020 Customer Case Study

SMC3rates_shutterstock_5247046.jpg

Shippers save money, time with automated transportation bidding tools

If there’s one immutable truth in the world of logistics, it’s this: LTL is an inherently complex form of transportation. Tariffs, rates, DIM weights, transit times — it’s enough to confuse even seasoned logistics professionals. The solution to this knowledge gap has historically been on-the-job training or university supply chain education, but for a variety of reasons there is now a pressing need for third-party, remote LTL training that prepares logistics workers for transportation success. Global Scope Can Overlook Local Intricacies In the past, professionals looking to move into a supply chain career learned about the basics of supply chain from universities. However, many of these college supply chain programs are now global in scope, focusing on worldwide supply chain management instead of the intricacies of specialized domestic transportation. And even these programs, which used to be widespread, are becoming less common. LTL is not an industry of broad-brush strokes; supply chain professionals really need a pointillistic understanding of the logistics of LTL in order to excel in the industry. Accelerating Need for Dedicated LTL Education This lack of specified training put the onus on employers to prepare new hires with the LTL knowledge needed to do their jobs. Dedicated LTL study is a necessity, not a luxury. At the same time, changes in LTL and the broader supply chain world are accelerating. The reliance on e-commerce has ballooned since the start of the pandemic, and last-mile LTL shipments and related e-commerce strains on the supply chain won’t diminish once social distancing abates. That genie isn’t going back into the bottle. So supply chain employers need logistics workers that are fully versed in all aspects of the industry, ready to solve unique shipping and delivery problems based on their extensive supply chain knowledge But why care about LTL? It’s been reported that some shippers in today’s world are no longer concerned with what mode is used to ship their goods. A Multimodal Approach Ensures On-Time Delivery This mode agnosticism means supply chain stakeholders have to be well versed in all modes of transportation. As unforeseen weather events and other disruptions, such as protests, become more common, savvy logistics employees will need to be armed with familiarity of all modes, not just the most popular, to ensure that freight is delivered on time, without damage, and in the most financially expedient way possible. Offerings like SMC³’s LTL online education courses cover a wide range of topics from LTL basics and operations to more advanced concepts like pricing analytics and transportation law. The company also has plans to continually refresh content, adding new expert presenters and taking the feedback of students to make the courses even better as time goes on. Learn more about&nbsp;<a href="https://logisticstrainingcenter.com/smc3-courses/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">SMC³’s LTL Online Education program</a>&nbsp;and view the 2021 hybrid schedule, featuring live industry experts,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.smc3.com/onlinelearning2021/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">here.</a>

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Filling the Supply Chain Education Gap with LTL Education Courses

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