Understanding Shipping Delays: Causes and Solutions | OneLink Holdings

Freight & Logistics

Understanding Shipping Delays: Causes and Solutions | OneLink Holdings

When your shipments are delayed, it can be frustrating and costly. Learn the most common causes of shipping delays and how to solve them.

Delays in shipping can be frustrating for businesses, especially when you’re relying on the timely delivery of a shipment for sales. Whether you’re an online business that relies on shipments to get your products to customers or a marketer managing the supply chain for a client, understanding the causes of shipping delays is essential. According to Bloomberg, in February 2022, only about 34% of container vessels arrived at their destination without any delays.

In this blog post, we’ll take a look at some of the most common problems that can cause shipments to be delayed and offer solutions for avoiding these issues in the future.

Shipping Conditions during COVID Pandemic

The theme of 2020 and 2021 was port congestions, nationwide lockdowns and shipping restrictions. One word, COVID. Unfortunately, this continued into 2022, with major backlogs in the shipping world. While there were plenty of ships and containers, the ports couldn’t keep up with the surge in demand; particularly from ecommerce brands, which resulted in clogged ports and slow circulation. Shipping conditions have improved off the back of COVID, with less congestion experienced from the second half of 2022.

Unexpected Weather Conditions

Unexpected weather conditions are one of the most common causes of shipping delays. Storms, hurricanes, snowstorms, and other extreme weather events can lead to road closures, flight cancellations, port closures, and other disruptions in the transportation system. While there’s no way to predict when these events will occur or how long they’ll last, it’s helpful to build extra time into your shipping timeline so that unexpected delays don’t disrupt your business operations.

Global Emergencies

Events that businesses cannot foresee are global emergencies such as pandemics, wars and other emergencies that lead to reduced shipping capacity. The most recent events to significantly halt international and domestic shipping was the COVID-19 pandemic. The war between Russia and Ukraine, and the growing tension between US and China are other examples of global emergencies.

Labour Disputes

Labour disputes can also cause shipments to be delayed. These disputes often take place between workers and employers or between union members and their unions. Labour disputes can include strikes, lockouts, slowdowns, and other work stoppages that prevent shipments from being delivered on time. To avoid delays caused by labour disputes, it’s important to stay informed about any labour issues that may affect your supply chain. It’s also helpful to have backup plans in place in case of a disruption in service. There is also an international shortage of workers, mainly due to the COVID pandemic, which means without people to do the job, delays are inevitable.

National and International Public Holidays

It is important to observe holidays throughout the year, both at a national and an international level. However, holidays also influence your shipping times. Some shipments may take longer to be processed due to holidays as carriers and delivery services may reduce their operations around these special days. It’s very important to factor holidays into planning for shipping dates and deliveries so that you can better estimate when customers will be receiving their orders. This can help you provide your customers with realistic expectations for delivery timelines and help ensure a positive customer experience with your business.

Port Congestion

Port congestion is another common problem that can lead to shipment delays. When ports become overcrowded due to increased demand for goods or changes in regulations, it can cause backlogs which lead to delayed shipments. To avoid port congestion-related delays, it’s important to plan ahead and make sure your shipments are ready well before they need to leave port so that they don’t get stuck waiting in line with other ships.

Incorrect or Incomplete Shipping Data

Putting the wrong delivery address, postcode or phone number can be enough to delay a shipment. Having the wrong import documentation can also mean delays or rejection at the import country port. Sending packages back can be costly to the seller and disappointing for the customer expecting the goods.

How do these delays affect customers?

Shipping delays can be a frustrating experience for customers because it affects the overall customer experience. Delays affect the excitement of getting a product in the hands of the customers and make the process much longer. Delays also lead to confusion and dissatisfaction when customers are not getting updates on their order status, or even more so when they have already paid for an item that is not showing up as quickly as expected.

What about businesses?

Shipping delays can cause all sorts of headaches for businesses. Missing a shipment means that businesses can’t provide customers with the goods or services that they were expecting. This disruption to the supply chain can delay production, delay the delivery of materials, or delay the launch of a new product. Businesses also have to deal with customer complaints and may have to offer discounts to make up for lost time and materials. Shipping delays put businesses in a tough spot; not only is their reputation on the line, but they’re potentially losing money too. To prevent this from happening, businesses should invest in reliable shipping services that are able to deliver goods fast and efficiently, minimising disruptions to supply chains and deliveries for customers who rely on timely service.

How can businesses mitigate risk from delayed deliveries?

To be prepared for potential delays, businesses need to factor some extra time into the shipping timeline. By allowing some extra days either side of delivery, it acts as a buffer incase of inclement weather, port congestion and any potential labour issues. For delays caused by public holidays, businesses should go through calendars and mark out public holidays. Any shipping needed to be done can be mapped out around these dates, to avoid the backlog that happens with public holidays. For global emergencies, which are often unforeseeable, communication with the customer is crucial. Consistently updating them on the situation provides some reassurance that their delivery is going to arrive eventually.

Delayed shipments can be costly for businesses and marketers alike. That’s why understanding the causes of shipping delays is essential for anyone involved in the supply chain process. By staying informed about potential weather issues, labour disputes, and port congestion and having backup plans in place just in case something goes wrong, you can help ensure that your shipments arrive on time without any hiccups along the way!

Written By

One Link Holding team

With our experience it puts us in a very unique position in being able to take your business from idea to reality, or if you’re part of the way there we can help with a number of individual areas in your business.