The boxes meant to be sitting in your warehouse right now are still on the water. That is the practical read on two reports published in the last two weeks, and it changes what your November looks like.
NRF revised its own forecast upward
The National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates released the September Global Port Tracker on September 9. Import volume at major US container ports is now forecast at 2.31 million TEU for September, up 9.6 percent from September 2025. Last month the same report put September at 2.16 million and called May the busiest month of the year. (gCaptain coverage of the September 9 release)
September is now the peak month of 2026. After that the pipe narrows. October is forecast at 2.11 million TEU (up 1.7 percent), November at 2.00 million (down 0.9 percent), and December at 2.03 million (up 1.1 percent).
NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold put it plainly: "We thought the peak season would be mostly behind us by now, but that's not the case." He named vessel delays caused by bad weather in China and rerouting away from the Panama Canal amid drought conditions. (Textile World, September 11)
We covered those disruptions when Golden Week put a deadline on Q4 orders. This is the same story showing up on the other end, as arrival dates.
Nobody is stockpiling what arrives
Here is what makes late arrivals expensive instead of merely annoying.
The Logistics Managers' Index for August came out September 1. Inventory Levels read 52.8, down 2.2 points and barely above the 50 line that separates growth from contraction. Inventory Costs read 78.6, up 1.6 points and the second-fastest expansion in twelve months. The report's own explanation is that firms are waiting until the last minute to bring inventory forward so they can minimize holding costs. (August 2026 Logistics Managers' Index)
FreightWaves market analyst Zach Strickland looked at the same picture on Saturday and called it a "down-the-middle approach" to ordering. His warning was blunt. This holiday season is one of the most challenging to predict, and brands need contingencies ready rather than a single plan. (FreightWaves, September 12)
Stack the two findings. Goods are arriving later than planned, and brands are holding less of them than usual when they land.
Where this hits the shipping bill
Late plus lean means your first reorder decision gets made after peak surcharges are already running.
USPS temporary peak prices start at 12 a.m. Central on October 4 and hold until January 17, 2027, covering Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, USPS Ground Advantage, and Parcel Select. (USPS newsroom, August 25) The private carriers stack their own surcharges on top through the same window, which we broke down in the 2026 peak fee comparison.
Run the sequence. A container that berths October 20 reaches your shelf around October 27. You get roughly ten days of clean sell-through data. That puts your restock call near November 10, and anything you expedite after that ships at the worst rate of the year into the tightest capacity. The LMI has Transportation Prices at 90.0, the fourth time in five months at or above that level.
The warehouse number worth acting on
One reading in the August LMI points the other way, and it will not last.
Warehousing Capacity jumped 7.2 points to 53.5. Warehousing Utilization fell 6.5 points to 59.6. There is more usable space in the network right now than there was in July.
Now look at what the same respondents predict for the next twelve months: Warehousing Utilization at 70.8 and Warehousing Prices at 79.2. The operators reporting slack today expect it to be gone.
If you have been putting off a storage conversation, September is the cheapest month you will get until spring, and the reason sits in the data rather than in anyone's sales pitch.
What this means for your brand
For a brand shipping 1,000 to 25,000 orders a month, four moves are worth making this week.
- Pull every open PO and write down the real arrival date, not the one on the original order. If a date moved, note whether it crossed October 4.
- Make your November reorder decision now, using last year's sell-through curve rather than waiting for this year's. You will not get clean data in time.
- Book receiving appointments for October containers before the calendar fills. Late inventory is only a problem when it also sits on a dock.
- Price the storage you actually need through January, including the returns wave. Committing in September costs less than committing in November.
The fulfillment side of this is unglamorous and it decides whether late inventory becomes late orders. Our warehouse and storage operation in Canal Winchester puts your inventory inside two ground days of about 90 percent of US customers, with 60 percent of the US and Canadian population inside 600 miles. Orders leave within 24 hours of hitting the queue, including the week a container lands three days behind schedule and everything has to be received and picked at once.
Sitting on POs with dates that keep sliding? Send us the arrival calendar and we will tell you where the receiving crunch lands.
FAQ
Should I air freight to make up the delay?
Only for items that carry the margin. Reserve it for top sellers with proven velocity and let slower SKUs arrive when they arrive. A stockout on a hero product costs more than the freight. A stockout on your long tail usually does not.
How late is too late for holiday inventory?
Work backwards from Black Friday. Goods need to be received and pickable before your first heavy volume day, so a late-November arrival is already a January product. If a container is landing after roughly November 10, plan it as post-holiday and restock rather than Q4 inventory, and price it accordingly.