A Guitar And Gear Support Forum

Word is a $1300 cost to ship from china is now up to 6k or more. And the delay is insane.
A big part of the problem is a CA law called AB5 that basically outlawed contract labor such as truckers. Some Non employee truckers have had to move out of CA. Lots of new rules and in a way thats arbitrary enough that no one company wants to take a chance getting anywhere near them. Some reports are its so backed up it may not catch up until next Christmas. I doubt that as new ships showing up are smaller, mostly because the big ones are so backed up from still waiting or returning from having waited. The typical backup waiting to port is usually under 2 weeks.
Anyone got details? Reading up there is so much competing info to get a reading.




Green arrows are still in transit.

There is NO backlog at our local container port (Panama City, Floriduh.)

mickey wrote: ↑Mon Oct 18, 2021 3:47 pm There is NO backlog at our local container port (Panama City, Floriduh.)

Just curious how much traffic does it get, normally?
Are there stats somewhere?

BTW, it insane how many ships are sailing at any one time, all this without much care, vis a vis environment, labor laws and who knows what else.

PoodlesAgain wrote: ↑Mon Oct 18, 2021 4:27 pm

mickey wrote: ↑Mon Oct 18, 2021 3:47 pm There is NO backlog at our local container port (Panama City, Floriduh.)

Just curious how much traffic does it get, normally?
Are there stats somewhere?

I have no idea but the local TV news has reported lately the container port is idle most of the time.

I thought the backlog problem was because we just barely escaped the teeth of a terrifying recession...lol

The time and expense of getting ships through Panama to the Atlantic are keeping the East Coast ports from being backed up. There is also the issue of ground transportation, warehousing etc. that make it really hard to quickly move capacity away from California.

There are a lot of issues in California due to moronic regulations, not just the truck drivers, but there are tight limits on the trucks that can be used. If stuff doesn’t flow out of the ports, they can’t unload more ships because they have nowhere to put the stuff. It’s a huge complicated mess, and there are no simple short term fixes. The long term solution is to be less dependent on both China and California, but I don’t see either of those things happening quickly.

I heard my company is getting a surcharge of $20k per container from China.

Soon it will co$t too much to smuggle drugs!

Same story we've been reading all year - just a different spot along the supply chain. Sadly though, shipping costs could probably increase another ten-fold and it will still be cheaper to pay it than to just make the stuff here in the first place.

uwmcscott wrote:Same story we've been reading all year - just a different spot along the supply chain. Sadly though, shipping costs could probably increase another ten-fold and it will still be cheaper to pay it than to just make the stuff here in the first place.

I know a lot of companies are expanding in Mexico again (via Maquiladoras) because of the shipping issues.

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Well it does look like there are several reasons behind transport getting more difficult. Fuel prices for one, then political decisions next, such as protective tariffs and whatnot...and here too they now require EVERY packet from outside EU to go through customs, even a $1 letter or whatever. Which means a delay of at least a week for handling, and even if it's deemed free of duties, there are handling fees. And if it's not free of duty you have to provide receipts and all before they will forward it to you.

One OD pedal I ordered took two months to arrive because of those issues.

Can't even imagine buying anything from the US any more as transport alone can easily be $100 even for envelope sized packets. From China it's still marginally cheaper to buy from, but it can indeed take months to arrive. Same from the UK.

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