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John’s Blog
7-12-10
Dear Friends,
In the news last week was a Commerce
Department report showing wholesale inventories increased 0.5% in
May. On the other hand wholesale sales decreased 0.3% for the first
sales drop in a year after an April increase of 0.9%.
The reason for the increase in
wholesale inventories (1/4th of total business
inventories) is that consumers have put away their wallets. While
durable goods are sitting in inventory the level of stocking remains
very low. It appears that retailers and others are keeping tight
control of inventory awaiting stronger consumer spending.
Intermodal rail traffic continues to
jump with 231,286 trailers and containers handled in the previous
week for a 36.6% year over year weekly increase. Freight rail
traffic grew 286,777 carloads or 18.8% in the same period according
to the AAR.
The Pacific Maritime Association
reported that west coast ports handled a 14% increase in container
traffic in the first five months of 2010. Steady increases are
forecast to continue. West coast ports handle 50% of all container
traffic.
Container supply in Asia continues to
be very tight.
At Wagner we continue to work on
converting many of our clients over to RedPrairie technology so they
may gain easy visibility in real time to their inventory, receipts
and shipments. Web browser access to WagLink on our web site is all
that is needed along with an assigned password to access a wealth of
downloadable information.
If you are planning any projects for
e-fulfillment, distribution warehousing, transportation, or
co-packing, please give us a call!
Have a great week!
John Wagner Jr
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