96: Supply Chain Hot Topics: Tariffs Moved Peak Season Up, and Carriers Are Charging for It

Sep 28

3 min read

What happens when tariffs pull peak season forward, and the carriers send the bill?

For the very first episode of Supply Chain Hot Topics, Courtney and Katie are trying something new. No guest this time. You told us you wanted to hear more from the two of us, so we're bringing you into the conversations we have almost every day: the supply chain headlines we keep sending each other and can't stop talking about. This week, that means two stories that turn out to be twins.

The first story: tariffs are triggering an early, frantic peak season. Trans-Pacific shippers are frontloading inventory to beat new tariff deadlines, squeezing what's normally an October–November rush into an earlier scramble. It sounds smart on paper, but dodging the tariff can mean paying the warehouse instead: extra months of storage, cash tied up in inventory, shelf-life concerns, and warehouse networks that go from yellow to red overnight during the busiest time of the year. As Courtney puts it, the tariff conversation is no longer just about which goods get taxed. It's about how fast your supply chain can physically move before the clock runs out.

The second story is the domino effect. FedEx's 2026 peak season surcharges raise its Ground Residential fee from $0.65 to $0.80 per package at peak, a 23% jump, and UPS, Amazon, and the U.S. Postal Service are following with increases of their own. Mid-size shippers and small businesses feel it most, because they don't have the volume leverage to negotiate those surcharges away. Katie connects the dots: shippers pushed freight earlier to avoid tariffs, that spiked early demand, and now carriers are pricing peak capacity to match. One supply chain loop, two price tags.

So what do you do about it? Courtney shares the advice she gives her own team: bad news does not age well. Model your surcharges now, book capacity early, and bring your finance team in before anyone is surprised by Q4. Katie adds how one of the best procurement executives she knows delivers hard news by walking leadership through the why, and why raising it early gives the business more levers to pull. The two also make the case for supply chain professionals to show up as business leaders with supply chain expertise, bringing solutions and not just the risks. They wrap with listener questions on diesel price volatility and regionalization, both coming up on future Hot Topics episodes.

Your turn: if your leadership told you today that peak season was moving up six weeks, what would break first in your supply chain? Your warehouse space, your carrier agreements, or your demand forecast? Drop your answer on our Instagram, and we'll read our favorites on the next Hot Topics episode.

In this episode, we discuss:

0:00 – Introduction and Episode Overview

1:58 – Impact of Tariffs on Peak Season Timing

4:03 – Early Inventory Loading and Its Implications

5:48 – Warehouse Capacity and Storage Challenges

7:52 – Rising Shipping Surcharges and Cost Implications

9:56 – Strategic Planning and Risk Mitigation

12:03 – Advice for Supply Chain Leaders

14:00 – Upcoming Topics and Listener Engagement

Listen in for more on getting ahead of an early peak season!

👉 Listen on Apple Podcasts

👉 Watch this episode on YouTube