Trucking companies are pinning hopes for a rebound in freight demand on the second half of this year, saying their retailer customers expect to resume restocking after winding down inventories over recent months.
Carrier executives say they are hearing from their shipping customers that they expect to return to a more normal ordering cycle this year and start moving bigger volumes closer to the fall shopping season following volatile retail spending and distribution in 2022 that left them overstocked.
“The general consensus, almost unanimous, from customers that have given us feedback about their inventories has been that by the time they get through the spring, things are caught up,” David Jackson, president and chief executive of trucking giant Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc., said on an investor conference call Jan. 26.
“What we expect is that through the first two quarters of this year, we’ll see this softness as a result of freight that’s already moved, and then we start to move back into a more normal cycle,” he said.
