Spot rates for shipping containers jumped by the most in more than two years, which means that a 16-month slump in ocean-freight costs that helped ease the sting of goods inflation is over.

The Drewry World Container Index composite increased 11.8% to $1,761 for a 40-foot container. That’s the fourth straight advance and biggest week-on-week percentage gain since June 2021. The composite had fallen in 15 of the 16 months through June. It reflects short-term rates across eight trade routes connecting Asia, Europe and the U.S.

The costs for shipping from Shanghai to Los Angeles reached $2,322 per 40-foot container unit. That’s an 11.3% increase from the previous week and fifth straight increase, according to Drewry. From Shanghai to Rotterdam, the rate jumped 25% to $1,620, the most since January 2021.

Shipping rates jumped tenfold to record highs during the height of the pandemic. Consumers had shouldered household expenses and COVID-19 led to a blockage of logistics networks.

Since then, container shipping costs have returned to levels reached before the health crisis, which has recently declined due to bloated inventories and low consumer spending.

Matson Inc., a Honolulu-based container carrier providing an express service from China to the U.S. and charging a premium for the faster route, earlier this week said retailers are continuing to manage inventories carefully amid weaker demand.

Matson CEO Matt Cox said in the August 1 statement that in the absence of an economic hard landing in the U.S., they continue to expect trade dynamics to gradually improve through the end of the year as the transpacific marketplace transitions to a more normalized level of consumer demand and retail inventories stocking levels.

Last week, closely held French carrier CMA CGM SA laid out a gloomy outlook for the industry, especially on more established trade lanes. CMA CGM Chief Finance Officer Ramon Fernandez told reporters that East-West shipping routes are under more pressure and dropping faster than the North-South trade, which remains pretty dynamic.

Copenhagen-based A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, the world’s No. 2 container carrier, is scheduled to release an interim report on Aug. 4 for its second quarter results, according to www.digitalcommerce360.com.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) proposed new “click to cancel” rule could make canceling subscriptions much easier for consumers. It would apply to any retailers that sell products or services with subscriptions, automatic renewals, or similar systems.

The rule would require companies to offer an easy way to cancel subscriptions and recurring memberships.

• The ruling would ban requiring consumers to call to cancel subscriptions that they’d signed up for online.
• Retailers would also be required to give more information about subscription beginning and end dates and how to cancel.
• Retailers would also need to send annual reminders to customers for subscriptions that don’t involve physical goods.

Subscriptions have long been promising territory for ecommerce retailers hoping to build a returning customer base. The global subscription box market reached $26.9 billion in 2022, according to Expert Market Research. The firm expects the subscription box market to reach $74.2 billion by 2028.

The legality of automatic subscription renewals can be difficult to navigate, according to lawyer Robert Freund, who focuses on ecommerce.

Subscriptions and cancellations are governed by many laws across the U.S. The 2010 Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA) requires retailers to provide “simple mechanisms for a consumer to stop recurring charges.” In 2021, The Federal Trade Commission issued a statement warning companies about employing “illegal dark patterns” to keep customers from canceling memberships.

The federal law is somewhat vague, and many states have adopted their own, stricter laws. The combination of federal laws, FTC enforcement, and differing state laws is difficult to comply with.

Retailers open themselves to friendly fraud when they automatically renew subscriptions or make them difficult to cancel, according to Chargebacks911, a risk management software provider that helps retailers in billing disputes.

The company’s CEO Monica Eaton told Digital Commerce 360 that a tedious cancellation process could push customers to file a chargeback, or file a complaint with entities like the FTC even if the retailer is fully compliant and following all payment processing guidelines that govern their merchant account.

Customers who forget to cancel a free trial or don’t recognize a recurring subscription charge on their bank statement can file a dispute with their bank. Retailers may then have to pay additional chargeback fees, or pay to fight the charges. Too many chargeback requests can lead to a retailer losing processing capabilities.

A new ranking of 25 top B2B marketplaces notes that they have raised a combined total of more than $2.1 billion in funding.

The European B2B marketplace market is growing at a rapid rate and continuing to attract bigger amounts of investment money, says a new research report, the Europe B2B Marketplaces Top 25 Ranking 2023, from Applico Inc. It shows that 25 marketplaces in the ranking have raised more than $2.1 billion over time. 85% of the money is flowing into marketplaces in building materials, retail, and food products.

According to the report, investors in the U.S. have followed a similar path with building materials, food products, B2B marketplaces accounting for over 40% of capital raised across leading digital B2B marketplaces in the U.S.

A rising new area of investment is marketplaces focused on industrial machinery for contract manufacturing, where successful businesses in the U.S. have attracted $475 million of capital. There are a few marketplaces in Europe that have similar business models and capabilities.

Examples of B2B marketplace operators targeting Europe for growth include Amazon Business and Xometry. Amazon Business is improving logistics operations in Europe to make it more attractive for corporate-account customers to make bulk purchases of supplies ranging from desks and IT equipment to paper and printer ink. That provides Amazon the opportunity to reap higher margins compared with small-order retail consumer sales.

Because businesses buy in larger quantities, the fulfillment economics are more advantageous, Amazon told Reuters.

The Otto Group is partnering with Covariant, a company specializing in AI-driven warehouse robots. With the partnership, Otto wants to automate its fulfilment activities and increase its operational efficiency. Otto’s German fulfilment locations will be robotized first.

The German Otto Group is the owner of leading ecommerce brands such as About You and Bonprix. Recently, Otto announced it is disbanding its toy platform MyToys as it was not able to become profitable.

Covariant was founded in 2017 in the United States. The company offers AI-driven warehouse robots for automated order picking, placement and sorting. Only a month ago the business raised 75 million dollars, with the total amount raised of over 200 million dollars.

By partnering with Covariant, Otto wants to ‘automate a variety of manual fulfillment activities that previously required hand-eye coordination’, the company writes. The aim is to install hundreds of Covariant’s robotic solutions in Otto Group’s fulfilment centres, starting with the German locations Haldensleben and Altenkunstadt.

Logistics needs to be as cost-efficient as possible. By using generalist AI, Otto can find an answer to the massive shortage of workers on the market.  According to CEO Services Kay Schiebur from the Otto Group, as transshipment is often outsourced to cheaper locations now, Otto is particularly pleased to be able to continue to be close to their customers and to strengthen the European and especially the German locations.

Shopify Inc. will cut jobs for the second time in 10 months and has agreed to sell the majority of its logistics business to Flexport Inc., according to a memo issued by the company’s Tobi Lütke. The company faces a challenging climb back from last year’s slump.

Shopify Inc. expects to incur severance charges of $140 million to $150 million.

The ecommerce platform provider also announced its fiscal first-quarter earnings on May 4. It said itsrevenue increased 25% to $1.5 billion compared to the prior year.

Gross merchandise volume, the total value of merchant sales across Shopify’s platforms, was $49.6 billion. That’s above Wall Street projections of $47.68 billion, and some $6.4 billion higher than comparable quarter of 2022.

The Ottawa-based company also gave an outlook for the second quarter, saying it expects revenue to grow at a similar rate to the first quarter growth rate on a year-over-year basis. It also expects to achieve free cash flow profitability for each quarter of 2023.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Shopify hoped that the rapid growth of online shopping would become permanent. When the hopes were not fulfilled, Lutke tried to rebuild the company. Last summer, they cut about 1,000 jobs, raised prices and focused on creating offers for their customers and their own fulfillment network. At the end of 2022, Shopify had 11,600 employees.