The National Retail Federation is projecting a surge of imports from retailers ahead of potential tariffs in December, stating “November’s 1.97 million TEU would be the highest monthly total since the record 2 million TEU seen in October 2018“. That’s likely due to be the result of stockpiling ahead of increased U.S. tariffs on Chinese exports. As outlined in Panjiva’s research of Sept. 9 apparel retailers are taking a diverse approach to tackling tariffs.
Panjiva’s U.S. seaborne import data, retrieved via S&P Global Xpressfeed, shows that shipments associated with Guess and Urban Outfitters both show signs associated with stockpiling as imports grew by 48.1% and 70.2% year over year respectively in August as they rushed to beat tariffs. Guess has previously indicated that they plan to move out of China as quickly as possible.
The Cato Corporation appears to have taken a more moderate approach with an increase of just 2.5%. By contrast, some retailers have already cut their imports from China. For example, Designer Brands, owner of DSW shoes, has cut its shipments by 54.6% – though that may be due to reduced business activity as its imports from all other sources fell 28.0% over the same period.

Source: Panjiva
Multiline retailers have already had some experience of tariffs with the “list three” coverage of Chinese furniture exports since Sept. 2018. They will also continue to face a wider range of tariffs which will cover all consumer products by Dec. 15, unless the trade war is resolved by then.
Target has already announced that they will not accept price increases related to China tariffs. Imports from China associated with the firm dropping 39.7% year over year in the three months to Aug. 31. Target’s hardline policy may already have driven away suppliers who cannot accept the decreased margins.
Retailers Burling and Ascena – owner of Lord + Taylor among others – have also shown decreases in imports from China by 29.0% and 27.7% respectively. Both companies seem to be shifting to Vietnam, with imports by volume to the U.S. having increased by 34.1% for Burlington and 111.5% for Ascena.

Source: Panjiva
Replicating this Analysis in Xpressfeed
To find retailers in Panjiva Xpressfeed data, select the sum of volumeTEU, year and month date parts, and the parent company id, shipment origin, company name, and GIC code to filter on. Union multiple years together to increase the timeline of the search, and then join subquery that identifies panjiva identifiers associated with the selected GIC. Use the left function to shorten the GIC code to search for higher level identifiers. Finally, join on the consignee and shipper Panjiva ids and group. On some databases, using a union two separate queries instead of joining with ‘or’ may lead to quicker queries.





