Covid 19 is Pushing Up Shipping Costs

The Covid situation has caused plenty of economic disruption worldwide already; now we are seeing crippling shortages of containers and huge rises in global shipping costs caused by the pandemic.

You can't pick up a newspaper or listen to the news at the moment without reading or hearing about the current global shipping problems. This has been building up all year and is now becoming a major issue for anyone importing or exporting goods by sea freight (and air freight for that matter).

To put it in context, shipping a container that would have cost $1,500-$2,000 before the pandemic can now cost anything up to $12,000-$15,000.

This has been caused by a "perfect storm" of factors including:

• Reduced volume of sailings and a surge in demand as the world's economy starts to recover from Covid
• Continued shipping imbalance causing container shortages - containers in the wrong place at the wrong time
• No buffer capacity or flexibility in the system if there are problems
• Bottle necks and congestion at ports causing delay - loading for export and unloading for imports
• Covid outbreaks in major Asian export hubs causing staff shortages and closures 
• No viable alternative to sea freight for many products

Wherever possible we have tried to absorb these additional costs but unfortunately there are going to be price rises - we are doing everything we can to keep them to a minimum but they are caused by global events and factors beyond our control.

From 1 August, all CSB battery prices will be increasing - this applies to all their batteries plus kits we assemble, including replacement UPS battery kits.