May 20, 2025
That 90-day trade “victory” everyone’s celebrating is like finding out your raise was smaller than you hoped — 30% China tariffs hurt less than 145%, but your wallet still feels it. As ports watch a third of their ships disappear and shoppers face bare shelves by June, something interesting is happening too: The companies killing it in customer satisfaction aren’t rushing around like maniacs. They’re keeping their promises instead. Meanwhile tire manufacturers are making bank on delivery trucks; those rosy March inventory numbers got a reality check, and construction crews discovered that early communication saves a lot of headaches later in the face of tariffs. The lesson? In this mess, winning isn’t about moving the fastest — it’s about moving the smartest with the right partners.
Sure, the U.S. and China shook hands on a 90-day tariff truce. And those “reduced” 30% tariffs might sound better than the eye-watering 145% rates they replaced. Yet they still pack more punch than any China duties we’ve seen. While diplomats exchange pleasantries, port executives watch ships disappear and supply chain experts are quietly stockpiling aspirin.
Numbers never lie, and right now, they’re ugly. Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka dropped a bombshell at April’s Harbor Commission meeting: Container traffic would plummet 35% by this month. That’s a gut punch for a port that handles 17% of all U.S. imports and exports. Adding insult to injury, the nearby Port of Long Beach — responsible for another 14% of trade — expects a 30% cargo drop in Q2 and a 20% decline the rest of 2025. Essentially, all shipments from China have hit the brakes, leaving 38% fewer vessels arriving at Long Beach in the last week of April alone.
While Q1 saw a tariff-motivated shopping spree — companies and consumers scrambling to beat the new rates — reality’s knocking now. Come mid-June, shoppers will find shelves looking like the aftermath of Black Friday. Need a blue shirt? Good luck finding one that fits among the 11 purple ones gathering dust. Port workers, truck drivers, and warehouse staff who’ve spent decades moving goods from overseas will watch pink slips multiply as cargo dwindles. Apollo Global Management Chief Economist Torsten Slok seems to think so at least.
Two-day delivery means nothing if your package shows up three days late. While e-commerce giants battle over shipping speeds, smart retailers know the truth: Hit your deadline and keep customers in the loop. A May 7 event hosted by Retail Dive and Supply Chain Dive had many insightful nuggets.
Purple Mattress COO Eric Haynor doesn’t lose sleep over Amazon’s lightning-fast delivery times. His company takes seven to 10 days to deliver beds, and customers couldn’t be happier. “You’ve got to hit your promise, because people are scheduling their work around being there to open the door and let you in,” Haynor explains. People plan their entire schedules around delivery windows — blow that deadline, and you’ve just ruined their day. Purple’s customers willingly pay for reliability because they know their new mattress will arrive exactly when promised.
Speed isn’t everything when customers crave transparency, and Cart.com co-founder Remington Tonar gets it, saying that the “Holy Grail is communication, visibility, and doing what you said you were going to do.” Today’s shoppers track their DoorDash orders down to the minute — they expect the same real-time updates for their packages. Cart.com builds software that follows inventory from the warehouse to the doorstep, allowing customers to refresh tracking pages obsessively. Brands that combine online stores with physical locations create an agile network that adapts to customer needs and matches their expectations more frequently than speed-only strategies.
When your customers’ same day delivery arrives faster than their patience runs out, thank the booming last mile delivery (LMD) tire industry. According to research by Smithers, LMD tires will hit 215 million units worth $21.2 billion in 2025, then rocket to 365 million units and $38 billion by 2030. That’s a 12.4% annual growth rate that’s got tire manufacturers spinning their wheels with excitement.
E-commerce created a weird paradox: Delivery drivers need commercial-grade tires but in mini-van sizes. Forget the massive 18-wheelers — many of today’s delivery vehicles are smaller, agile vehicles that can quickly hit every doorstep in sight. These short hops cost up to 50% of total supply chain expenses, but they’re pure gold for tire makers that figured out that smaller means bigger profits. Demand is exploding for under-16-inch tires, proving that sometimes the best things really do come in small packages.
Electric vehicles are juicing up the delivery game. EV tires will grab just over 25% of last mile fleet sales in 2025, then surge to over 40% by 2030. Urban fleets are also in a prime position to cash in on cheap EVs and better charging stations. Meanwhile, delivery fleets have become testing grounds for smart tire tech — pressure monitoring systems and sensors that help fleet managers baby their rubber. And they need to, considering these tires face heavy loads, constant stop-and-go, aggressive curb parking, and drivers who likely learned to parallel park on YouTube.
Remember that March wholesale inventory bump? Well, the government was a tad overly optimistic. After a closer look at the books, wholesale inventories only rose 0.4% instead of the originally reported 0.5%.
The slight downward revision tells a familiar tale: businesses going bonkers with import orders, front-loading goods, and desperately trying to beat President Trump’s tariff threats. The result was a mountainous $140.1 billion annualized rate of inventory buildup that made the previous quarter’s measly $8.9 billion look like loose change. This hoarding spree added 2.25% to GDP — the biggest inventory party since late 2021. But here’s the catch: While warehouses bulged, the massive trade deficit became the ultimate GDP buzzkill, yanking a record 4.83% and dragging the economy into its first contraction since 2020.
Behind the revision lies a tale of mixed signals across different sectors. While electrical equipment, lumber, apparel, and farm products saw their inventory numbers dialed back, wholesale sales perked up 0.6% in March (following February’s 2% surge). The inventory-to-sales ratio remained steady at 1.30 months, meaning wholesalers could clear their shelves in just over a month if they stopped ordering tomorrow. Year over year, inventories still climbed a respectable 2.2%, proving that the great stockpiling saga left its mark even with the downward revision. The real question now: Will businesses keep stuffing warehouses like it’s 2021 or start trimming the fat as the dust settles?
Construction costs have surged 40% since early 2020, and now tariffs add another wrench to the toolbox. The latest NJBIZ Construction & Development panel on April 29 brought together industry leaders to discuss how they’re handling the new reality of higher steel and aluminum prices, with everyone from suppliers to contractors figuring out who foots the bill.
Steel, aluminum, finishes from Asia, mechanical equipment — you name it, and its price tag just got heavier. Frank Ciminelli II from Arc Building Partners put it bluntly: “There’s a lot of people who are going to be riding the budget until we get a better sense of what the total impact is going to be.” Meanwhile, Tammy Smith from The Alban Group is watching her vendors play catch-up, with domestic suppliers using tariffs to jack up their prices, similar to how they did during COVID. Josh Kuskin from Rockefeller Group sees a silver lining, though — with construction volumes down and developers holding back (first-quarter 2025 industrial delivery hit its lowest point since 2010), hungry subcontractors might absorb some costs rather than lose work.
When prices get wonky, the best defense isn’t hiding — it’s huddling up faster. Amir Nekoumand from DPR Construction nailed it: “What you can control is how early you begin collaboration and how you begin planning.” The pandemic taught these builders that projects succeed when everyone plays with an open hand from day one. Ciminelli echoes this sentiment: “The projects we saw most successful are the ones where the clients were most willing to be open-minded and proactive.” Smart contractors are front-loading the conversation about material selection and lead times because waiting pushes risk into that uncomfortable place where someone has to price it later. Work together more, not less, and reap the rewards.
While everyone else is racing to figure out which end is up — trading speed for reliability, watching inventory numbers get revised faster than a Wikipedia edit war, and playing tariff hot potato — the smart money knows that success isn’t about avoiding the chaos. It’s about having a delivery partner that thrives in it.
At FRAYT, we’re ready for anything. Our delivery network, vehicles, and solutions are your constant in these unpredictable times:
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