Costco, Nike and FedEx are warning there’s more inflation set to hit

Shipping bottlenecks that have led to rising freight costs are cooking up a holiday headache for U.S. retailers.

Costco this week joined the long list of retailers sounding the alarm about escalating shipping prices and the accompanying supply chain issues. The warehouse retailer, which had a similar cautionary tone in May, was joined by athletic wear giant Nike and economic bellwethers FedEx and General Mills in warning of similar concerns.

The cost to ship containers overseas has soared in recent months. Getting a 40-foot container from Shanghai to New York cost about $2,000 a year and a half ago, just before the Covid pandemic. Now, it runs some $16,000, according to Bank of America.

In a conference call Thursday with analysts, Costco Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti called freight costs “permanent inflationary items” and said those increases are combining with things that are “somewhat permanent” to drive up pressure. They include not only freight but also higher labor costs, rising demand for transportation and products, plus shortages in computer chips, oils and chemicals and higher commodity prices.

“We can’t hold on to all those,” Galanti said. “Some of that has to be passed on, and it is being passed on. We’re pragmatic about it.”

Quantifying the situation, he said inflation is likely to run between 3.5% and 4.5% broadly for Costco. He noted that paper products have seen cost increases of 4% to 8% and he cited shortages of plastic and pet products that are driving up prices from 5% to 11%.

“We can hold the line on some of those things and do a little better job — hopefully do a better job than some of our competitors have and be even that more extreme than the value,” Galanti said. “So I think all those things so far, at least despite the challenges, have worked in our favor a little bit.”

The timing, though, is not good.

Persistent inflationary pressures come at a time when retailers are preparing for the holiday shopping season – Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, then into the new year. The pandemic has brought with it a relentless slew of factors that has made inflation an economic buzzword after a generation of mostly moderate price pressures.

Companies are pressed to deal with the situation ahead of a critical period.

“Getting closer to the holidays, we have been working with retailers and what we see is, No. 1, they’ve got to be flexible with their supply chain,” said Keith Jelinek, managing director of the global retail practice at consulting firm Berkeley Research Group. “We’ve seen cost-of-good increases especially in apparel, also costs of inbound shipping with the costs of containers, increases with transportation, trucking to get into distribution centers.”

“All these costs are going to hit…