I took at look at the JOC Top 100 importers. Taken as a group, the top 100 importers shipped 7.36 million twenty foot equivalent (teu) containers. I next looked at retail and consumer goods only. Collectively they shipped 5.26 million teu's, or approximately 72% of the total.

As an aside, the top 5 importers are all retailers, and their volume alone is 2.98 million teu's.

Why is this important? The import peak season is largely driven by retail sales, including the consumer goods companies who supply them. It starts with back to school (BTS), then Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

Orders for those the holiday season are already being placed, and will begin to start shipping as early as April (BTS), reaching a crescendo in October (that's the latest you can still make Christmas by boat). If you look at these trends over time you will see a very consistent pattern of low volumes from December - March, then rising steadily in April - October. There are a couple of small blips in between, for example Chinese New Year creates a blip in January of February every year as importers try to get ahead of the factory closures.

Back to the Gap, as you can see from this article by Suzanne Kapner for The Wall Street Journal, Gap is having a tough time, in part due to self inflicted wounds. However, the article also mentions rising interest rates and inflation as factors. As the economy cools and interest rates rise, it impacts every sector, and retail and CPG in particular. For example, if builders pull back on new housing, you will see a corresponding dip in furniture sales.

As an early mentor told me 'every thing you want to know about supply chain you can read about in the business section'. John Shubkegel (may he rest in peace) shared a lot of great wisdom like that, and it rings as true today as it did back then.