News of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak is unavoidable at this point, given that it's the biggest topic of conversation among the global media. The virus began to significantly impact international supply chain operations as early as mid-January, and considerably more so once the virus began to spread outside of mainland China.
Along with forcing manufacturers and distributors to source products from other suppliers or deal with delays in shipments, the virus has has resulted in the canceling, postponing or altering of a myriad of international trade shows, while others that remain a go have had to take extensive sanitation and safety measures. Meanwhile, business travel has been significantly disrupted among major companies, and the virus could cost airlines as much as $113 billion in lost revenue.
In terms of market impacts, the virus — COVID 19 — has resulted in sudden weakened demand of certain product categories as certain industries and entire countries try to weather the virus until containment is achieved. As of Thursday afternoon, there are more than 95,000 confirmed cases of the virus globally and 3,300 deaths from it.
See ID's recap of recent industrial distributor and supplier commentary regarding coronavirus impacts here.
One of the industries where the virus' impact continues to worsen is in parcel shipping, where major carriers are dealing with significant volume drops and extended delivery times.
This week, Auditshipment — a provider of shipping invoice audit process solutions — analyzed more than 150 data points collected from tracking 1 million shipments across different small parcel shipping carriers to build out an infographic of how the virus is impact volume at major carriers. See that infographic below:
Auditshipment
