FULFILLMENT
Stord just made its biggest acquisition yet
Stord's earlier deals were pieces other companies no longer wanted: Ware2Go from UPS, Shipwire from CEVA, a Kentucky building from Pitney Bowes, and a Dallas site American Eagle's Quiet Logistics left behind. On October 21, it announced it's buying AMS Fulfillment, which ships more than 10 million orders a year for premium beauty, wellness, and DTC brands.
Stord didn't give a price. Axios put it at about $200 million, but that's unconfirmed. AMS operates more than a million square feet, with hubs around Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, and Philadelphia, and Stord says its network now includes more than 100 locations. A few AMS buildings already run automated put walls and sortation, which Stord plans to use for its robotics and AI work. AMS CEO Greg Morello said, "Premium brands have always understood that fulfillment is part of the product."
Stord lined up $400 million in credit in Edition 67, and two weeks later it's buying.
What this means for you: If you serve premium beauty or wellness brands, call your two or three biggest accounts this week and ask what would make them look around. AMS clients are about to hear from a 100-site network, and some of them will be curious. And if you run an independent 3PL with a strong niche, Stord just showed it will buy one. Get your numbers clean before anyone calls: client concentration, contract terms, margin by account.
3PL FOR SALE
A drayage and warehousing company near the Ports of LA and Long Beach is looking for a buyer
The company delivers import and export containers around Los Angeles. It runs its own company drivers plus a network of 80+ independent owner-operators, and the owner is retiring.
On the trucking side, it hauls containers across Southern California, the Inland Empire and Northern California, and covers AZ, NV, UT, NM, OR, CO and TX. It does pre-pulls and secure storage for early-morning deliveries, and handles flatbed, reefer containers, tri-axle chassis for overweight loads, and lowboy and drop-deck trailers.
They have 96,000 square feet across 2 facilities. It does short-term, long-term, overflow, and seasonal storage, plus transloading, devanning and vanning, pick, pack, and sort, re-boxing, labeling, inspection, palletizing, and rework. For retail compliance, it handles RFID and barcode scanning, UCC-128 labels, VICS-compliant bills of lading, and ship-window and routing management. It also does export consolidation and container stuffing (FCL, LTL, LCL), and can handle steel, bundled lumber, and beverage products.
Annual revenue: $17,000,000 (roughly)
EBITDA: $2,000,000 (roughly)
Asking price: $13,500,000
Reply to this email if you’re interested. Or email me at [email protected]
TRUCKING
Truckers want double digits, and trains are picking up the freight
Knight-Swift CEO Adam Miller said on the earnings call that the carrier will ask for "at least double-digit" increases when bid season opens next month. He expects to start at "low-to-mid double digits" and go from there. His tender rejections run two to three times the rest of the market's.
Diesel is what's stressing everyone in trucking. The American Transportation Research Institute asked nearly 3,100 industry people what worries them, and fuel prices ranked first. "The Economy" held that spot for three years and fell to sixth. The ATA's tonnage index rose 0.8% in September, and its chief economist, Bob Costello, said: "We are seeing soft tonnage levels, but capacity is still contracting, which is leading to a better market for motor carriers." So carriers are charging more on freight that isn't growing.
Railroads are catching some of it. Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern and CSX all reported higher profits, with domestic intermodal volume up 13%, 3% and 7%. The Wall Street Journal's headline read, "Railroad Earnings Rise as More Cargo Moves From Trucks to Trains.” Railroads pay for diesel too. Union Pacific said fuel cost it 140 basis points of operating ratio, though surcharges covered part of that.
What this means for you: Check which truckload contracts, yours and your clients', come up before spring. If your rates haven't moved in two years, the next conversation will be hard. Take your longest lanes and ask an intermodal provider for a quote and a transit time. Much freight won't work on rail, but a real number helps when a carrier asks for 12%. Then tell your clients what's coming before they get it from someone else in January.
LABOR
Amazon is hiring 300,000 seasonal workers and offering healthcare from day one
Amazon announced that it's hiring more than 300,000 people for fulfillment centers and delivery stations. Seasonal workers average $20 an hour. Starting January 1, 2027, seasonal employees working at least 30 hours a week get healthcare from day one, with plans starting at $5 a week and $5 copays.
Full-time core operations pay starts at $20 an hour. Amazon says the average is nearly $24, or more than $32 with benefits. Jobs are posted weekly through December.
In Edition 67, UPS said it was hiring 100,000 seasonal workers and making offers in under seven minutes. Together, that's 400,000 temporary jobs drawing from the same applicant pool.
What this means for you: The healthcare doesn't start until January 1, so it won't help most seasonal hires this season, but applicants will hear about it anyway. Look at what you're offering besides the hourly rate. A guaranteed number of hours, a ride to the building, or a bonus for finishing the season often costs less than a raise. And if you hire through a staffing agency, ask what they're doing to keep people from leaving for Amazon.
Quick hits
AUTOMATION
UPS finished automating four more sort centers.
The buildings are in Denver, St. Paul, Syracuse, and Portland, Oregon, and went live ahead of peak. UPS plans to close 200 manual sort facilities over five years, and says 68.5% of its U.S. volume now goes through an automated building, up from 64% a year ago. It also says automated facilities cost about 28% less per piece. It has cut about 30,000 positions so far. If you ship a lot of volume with UPS, expect fewer touches on your packages and stricter rules for labels and packaging quality.
TRADE
Canada's 50% tariffs were challenged on Tuesday and edited on Friday. A cheese importer, Gellert Global Group, filed the first challenge to Section 338, the 1930 law the tariffs use, and wants to represent every importer that has paid the duties on goods entered since August 22. Then the STR Trade Report said the White House added 100 products (carpets, vinyl flooring, paints, and cocoa powder, among them) and removed 22 (some plywood, paper products, and packing crates), effective 12:01 a.m. ET on October 30.
PORTS
Los Angeles had its busiest month in 118 years, and Long Beach did too. LA handled 1,042,652 containers in September, and Long Beach was close to a million. The cost shows up in the dwell numbers: containers waiting for a local truck sat 3.18 days, up from 2.95 in August, and rail containers sat 7.19 days, up from 6.75.
OCEAN
Carriers are canceling more sailings to push rates up. The Loadstar reports spot rates rose on all three main east-west trades after three months of declines. At the same time, the container ship orderbook is 46.5% of the active fleet, the highest since 2009. If you're importing from Asia, book early and ask your forwarder to confirm the sailing is still running.
SECURITY
Kaspersky found a hole in wireless barcode scanners.
Its research says a widely used scanner has no authentication between the scanner and its base station, so someone within Bluetooth range could send keystrokes to the connected computer and possibly run code on it. Kaspersky doesn't name the vendor. If you run wireless scanners, ask your IT person or WMS vendor whether the base stations sit on the same network as your warehouse system.
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We’re running an RFQ for a DTC furniture brand that needs one warehouse in the LA metro and one in the NY metro. Stools, chairs, benches, and tables that ship in their own cartons; about 375 pallets at go-live; a mix of parcel and freight-size cartons.
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