While distributors and other importers deal with tariff-driven price increases, there’s at least some good news on the cost of business front: ocean shipping rates.

Rates typically rise from July through October as retailers stock up for back-to-school and holiday shopping, but the tariffs environment has thrown off that timetable.

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The weekly World Container Index from maritime shipping research and consulting firm Drewry showed that global ocean shipping rates for a 40-foot container were at $2,119 for the week ending Aug. 28, down 6% from a week earlier, down 40.2% since a recent peak on June 12 and down 46.8% since Jan. 9.

It was the WCI’s 11th straight weekly decline, and Drewry noted that the firm expects it to decline further in the weeks ahead.

Further, Drewry’s World Container Index for Shanghai to Los Angeles was down 3% week-to-week at the end of August to $5,914 and down 60.6% since their June peak, while Shanghai to New York was down 5% weekly at $7,285 and down 54.8% from June.

“The phase of accelerated purchasing by US retailers, which induced an early peak season, has ended,” Drewry noted in its Aug. 28 assessment. “In response to a decelerating U.S. economy and increased tariff costs, they are now scaling back on procurement but at a measured pace. Hence, Drewry expects rates on this trade lane to continue declining in the coming weeks.”

Those figures coincide with those from online booking platform Freightos, which showed that the average spot rate for shipping from Asia to the U.S. West Coast was at $5,840 as of Sept. 2, down another 2.7% from a week earlier. Elsewhere, HSBC Global Research’s Shanghai Containerized Freight Index had an Aug. 28 reading that was down 6.8% from a week earlier, dragged down by a 27% decline in rates from Shanghai to the U.S. West Coast.

Meanwhile, monthly U.S. wholesale inventories increased 0.1% and 0.2% in June and July after sinking 0.3% in May.

U.S. Wholesale Inventories: Month-to-Month % Change

source: tradingeconomics.com

The National Retail Federation expects that U.S. imports will have peaked much earlier this year, in July.