Supply chain crisis gives once invisible shipping industry record profits and new adversaries
YIWU, China — Consider the plight of Xu Yaping’s flimsy swords and knockoff Barbies.
Exported from the International Trade City here, a wholesale market the size of 1,000 football fields, the toys for years have found their way across the world on ocean freight. But a once fast and cheap shipping network — accounting for 90% of global trade — has been upended by the pandemic and a supply chain crunch that has been roiling the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Amid a maze of cramped stalls in this bastion of globalization, Xu has watched her profits tumble: A container filled with $24,000 worth of toys headed for North America will now cost her more than 10 times the $1,250 fee she used to pay before the pandemic. Customers are canceling orders. Those remaining are buying a fraction of what they did before. Others are waiting for shipping rates to fall.
“They will say: ‘Ah, it’s expensive right now so let’s wait a
