COVID-19 Pandemic’s Influence on the Shipping Container Industry

The pandemic was a nightmare for all of us, for some of us it still is. Staying in the house, working from home and extra safety procedures really slowed down the working industry, so much so that a lot of companies had to shut up shop for good. The shipping container industry was no different. However, quite unlike the rest of the world, shipping containers absolutely surged. The end of 2020 saw container shipping start to slow down, but then shoot back up as the new year began. Starting in the origin country (China), the first issues started there – and a series of domino effects led to many issues in the shipping industry. Due to the breakout, a lot of container factories and manufacturing facilities had to temporarily close (like most workplaces in the world did), and this led to a slowdown in deliveries. Items ended up stocking up in storage facilities, and when the places were able to open up again, they all got sent out as soon as possible, explaining the massive surge of outgoings in the opening months of 2021.

How has it impacted Shipping Containers specifically?

The COVID-19 pandemic actually had a series of domino effects, one being a global shortage of shipping containers. It led to a drastic inflation in both shipping and shipping container prices, paired with late delay times. Obviously, the pandemic was an unforeseen situation, and nobody could really have prepared for what 2019, 2020 and 2021 had in store for us. Countries implementing lockdowns, shutdowns of workplaces, really damaging the economy. Shipping container companies in particular, pulled the amount of shipments being made, as a safety precaution in an attempt to slow down the spread of the virus. This stopped the usual flow of goods, but also ended up with empty shipping containers not being collected, and effectively lost. Whilst the world started learning to deal with viruses, China started recovering – resuming its imports and exports, really helping the industry gain its legs again. Now, the world is getting used to and has learned how to deal with the virus, with this industry in particular recovering quickly.

How come we were losing shipping containers?

A significant incident would be when items from Asia would be shipped to the American regions, but due to COVID restrictions – weren’t allowed to be sent back, and effectively getting lost all together. This is just one of the many examples of potential incidents of lost shipping containers. It was a massive problem, as supermarkets and stores all began to close for COVID preparations, everyone started shopping online, making it so shipping demand was at an all time high. But this paired with the loss of containers – ended up with the desirability being increased, and effectively the price, making it much harder for companies to find containers to use for shipment. However as time has gone on and manufacturers and shipment companies are opening up again, it’s once again easy to buy shipping containers. There are shipping containers for sale in Dubai, London, Madrid – all over the world.

What does the future hold for the industry?

Whilst we can’t necessarily predict the future (evidently, as no one saw the pandemic coming), the shipping container industry will be okay. Methods and ideas have been put into place and developed to effectively control the issue, if it were to ever happen again – such as new booking systems. The largest container shipping company in the world, Maersk, believe the situation will definitely improve – with their head of network saying the following: “It is expected that the situation will improve, bottlenecks are expected to be relieved, buying patterns likely to normalise, as well as additional vessels and containers entering the market in 2021, means that the current vessel and container shortage is temporary in nature.”.