Shopify, TikTok Shop, Temu, Etsy and the marketplaces behind them keep changing what they require of a seller shipping from China. Delivery time commitments, tracking standards, seller-fulfilled programme rules, and the penalties for missing any of them land on your fulfilment operation rather than your marketing. A platform tightening its dispatch window is an operations problem, not a listings problem. This tag tracks programme launches, policy changes, fee structures, and the fulfilment requirements attached to each. We are interested in the ones that change how fast you have to ship, what tracking you have to provide, and whether direct-from-China still qualifies at all. Selling on several channels from one China warehouse is efficient right up until one of them changes its rules and you find out from a suppressed listing.
The ASAS2 Asia to East Coast South America service ends after its final Shanghai departure on 8 December 2026; Maersk keeps its own ASAS service running.
COSCO starts a third weekly Far East to East Coast South America service from Ningbo around 17 December, adding capacity to Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.
China and the US agreed to cut tariffs on $30bn of goods each, covering 1,696 product lines, but soybeans remain subject to an additional 10% tariff in China.
Shein Global Holdings reported a 67% drop in second-quarter profit and warned that tariff headwinds and logistics cost volatility would persist for the rest of the year.
China to North Europe air rates fell 7% last week while transpacific air rose 3%, so your lane choice now decides your margin. The EU’s abolished €150 customs exemption is showing up in the data, with China and Hong Kong imports at Frankfurt down 1.8% and 7.4% in September. China’s September trade surplus hit $133.5 billion, which keeps tariff pressure from Brussels and Washington running hot into 2027 contract season.
US container imports hit a record 2,546,261 TEU in September, with China-origin volume up 4.5% on August to 924,454 TEU, so demand on your lane is strong even as spot rates to Europe fall by a third or more since July. Tender season favours you right now: carriers are cutting long-term deals and even forwarders are getting better rates. If you ship to FBA, Amazon’s two new China to US air options give you a 7 to 15 day replenishment window with no inbound placement fee.
A $100 billion gap between what China reports shipping to the US and what US Customs records receiving points to transshipment, mis-invoicing or both. The Arctic route carried 14,000 TEU this summer with half the transit time of Suez, dominated by high-value cargo. COSCO faces a potential $16.7 million penalty for ignoring an FMC order for 223 days.
From 19 October 2026, Maersk will hit any 20ft box over 25 tonnes into Germany and Poland with a $400 Heavy Load Surcharge, down from 28 tonnes. Maersk and CMA CGM are also ending their ASAS2 Asia to East Coast South America loop after the 8 December Shanghai sailing, and ONE is folding its Hong Kong regional HQ into Singapore from April 2027. Check your heavy 20ft bookings this week.
Almost all global carriers will trial Suez transits on Asia-Europe sailings in October, with the Premier Alliance’s One Continuity first through on 19 October. Shanghai’s on-time berthing fell to 12% in August and Asian schedule reliability sits at 32%, so whatever route your box takes, pad your lead times. Maersk is adding $250 to $500 per container to South Africa and Mauritius from 15 October.
The US-China trade truce now runs past 10 November and trans-Pacific spot rates hit a 2026 high of $8,400 per FEU to the West Coast, so book your Q4 space before Golden Week ends rather than after. The Hormuz closure is approaching its eighth month and looks set to permanently strip transhipment traffic from Jebel Ali and Khalifa. In the air, hi-tech freight at 3m tonnes has overtaken Chinese ecommerce as the main growth engine, which means more competition for the capacity you rely on.
China and the US announced tariff cuts on $30bn of goods each, covering 1,696 product lines, but the deal lands too late to change weakening transpac rates and does not touch the port fees on Chinese-built and Chinese-operated vessels, which restart 10 November unless USTR acts. Soybeans remain subject to an additional 10% tariff in China, and the whole deal still requires domestic legal procedures before it takes effect.
Chinese ecommerce exports to the EU fell 65% year on year in August, the second month of collapse since the €3-per-item fee took effect. Meanwhile, container schedule reliability on Far East–Europe dropped to 6%, with delays averaging 8.2 days, levels not seen since late 2021. If you have stock moving through Europe right now, your arrival date is fiction.
Container spot rates from China to the US East Coast reached $11,259 per FEU on 17 September, just 11% below the pandemic record set in January 2022. FedEx adds demand surcharges on China imports starting 21 September, with per-pound fees climbing to $0.91 on express services. If you have stock on the water, your landed cost just changed again.
Europe sources 67% of its active pharmaceutical ingredients from outside the region, with China and India controlling upstream supply, and that dependency is structural rather than temporary. Four more Gemini Asia-Europe services return to Suez westbound, improving schedule reliability but adding political risk. Freight costs on Gulf crude to China hit $162/mt, yet Beijing will not adjust fuel pricing, squeezing refiner margins.
CMA CGM will impose a $4,000/FEU peak season surcharge on 1 October for Asia to US routes, double its current rate, as port congestion in Shanghai and Ningbo leaves vessels waiting twelve days and backlogs exceed 4 million TEU. The disrupted schedules are pushing congestion downstream to south China and southeast Asia, keeping capacity tight through Golden Week.
Two carriers reshuffled their intra-Asia networks this week, tightening slot availability between China and Indonesia and moving port calls across the Philippines. If you consolidate in Shanghai for onward sale in Southeast Asia, your lane just got smaller and your backup options fewer.
Intra-Asia container rates climbed 9% in a week to $1,312 per 40ft as typhoon-related port congestion in China and transhipment bottlenecks in Busan, Hong Kong and Singapore tied up vessel supply. Air cargo shows no sign of a traditional Q4 peak, with forwarders expecting only modest tightening around Golden Week and Black Friday rather than the sharp surge that usually marks this time of year.
The first scheduled Arctic container service from China reached the UK on 9 September after a 25-day voyage, cutting transit time by a third compared to Suez. Asian port congestion reached 4.3 million TEU, higher than the pandemic peak, pushing carriers back toward Suez and pulling down Shanghai-Europe rates 5% to 10% week on week. If you have stock on the water to Europe, your transit just got less predictable as carriers swap routes mid-season.
China opens the Pinglu Canal on 15 September, halving transport costs from Nanning to South-east Asia. Hong Kong to Europe air cargo tonnages fell 30% year on year in August as EU duty changes persist. Gemini dropped Shanghai from its Asia shuttle, citing reliability, whilst typhoon delays at Shanghai and Ningbo exceed 10 days.
CMA CGM signed a joint development project at SMM 2026 to build decision-support systems for container vessels that keep human oversight but reduce crew workload. The project is technology-neutral and does not aim to remove crews, but it will assess which onboard functions can be automated or assisted. If you run a small catalogue and rely on predictable ocean transit, watch this: the carriers are building the tools to cut operating costs without cutting capacity, and that changes the economics of blank sailings and schedule reliability.
