Container Bytes
Container Bytes is your go-to podcast for quick insights on the latest global freight trends, condensed into easy-to-digest, under-ten-minute episodes. Each week, you’ll get key data points, actionable market movements, and forecasts to help you navigate the ups and downs of ocean and air freight. Tune in, stay sharp, and ship smarter. Brought to you by Freightos, the global freight booking platform.
Container Bytes
Surviving Your 2026 Ocean Freight Procurement: Special Interview with Stephanie Loomis, Noatum Logistics
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This is an episode from Freightos' Unfiltered Freight series, shared here too.
Welcome to a special edition of Container Bytes, featuring 30-year ocean veteran Stephanie Loomis, who's navigated everything from Hanjin's collapse to pandemic-era chaos. Her market predictions are legendary, and she's not sugarcoating what's ahead for your freight procurement in 2026.
Carriers have finally learned capitalism. The days of $500 China-LA rates are buried, and today's shipping giants won't touch freight that doesn't make money. "There are rates that will move freight and rates that will not." Smart shippers are securing space, not just chasing pennies.
Annual tenders? Dead. With the pave of change, quarterly procurement is the new minimum.
Industry boundaries are blurring fast. BCOs working with forwarders, everyone building tech stacks, and carriers potentially timing their Suez return to create just enough chaos to boost rates.
Share this episode or your next shipment might mysteriously end up on the blank sailing list.
CHAPTERS:
00:00:00 — Reality Check: Why your cheap rate won't move jack
00:00:52 — This Ain't 2008: When carriers discovered profit margins
00:03:20 — New Procurement: Space security trumps rate chasing
00:06:34 — Tender Evolution: Why annual contracts are obsolete
00:07:34 — Industry Convergence: BCOs, forwarders and carriers blur lines
00:09:23 — Human Element: Why relationships still beat algorithms
00:12:39 — Suez Strategy: Calculating when carriers create profitable chaos
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