OCTOBER 2023LOGISTICSTRANSPORTATIONREVIEW8 OPINIONIN MY2022. This was the year everything was meant to turn back to normal, right? The peak of the spicy cough had passed, the vaccine boosters had rolled out, and now travel was back on. For the supply chain, specifically around freight forwarding, we found ourselves yet again in an unprecedented position. We faced new and major challenges, creating a ripple effect across global supply chains. Ultimately, goods were piled up in storage, impacting vessels on their way to ports through diversion or being slowed down as they arrived at major transit hubs, thereby restricting global trade flows and limiting access for businesses to import goods and refill their shelves. And this time, without the support of government initiatives and mechanisms to drive consumers to shop,To understand how it all unfolded, let's look back on the retail market in the last 12­18 months.Firstly, there were big shifts in population movement. Thanks to a hybrid work-from-home model, we saw young families making the big move out of their inner-city apartments and into the more affordable suburbs. Some even moved interstate, because, why not?Secondly, household income rose. Young households became the highest earners in Australia, overtaking mid-life families for the first time ever.With the above in mind, we saw a fundamental shift in how consumers purchased. While we thought online sales would migrate back to in-store sales, this wasn't the case. The peak of online shopping that we saw during COVID remained By Tomer Bar-Ami, Head of Merchandise Planning and Supply Chain, Cheap as ChipsIMPORTANCE OF A NIMBLE FREIGHT FORWARDING SOLUTIONAs we continue to emerge from COVID and its impacts, many businesses recognize the need to better equip their supply chains by identifying alternative trading partnerships
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