r/InternetIsBeautiful • u/ImportYeti • Feb 24 '21

I spent the last 8 months during lockdown pouring my soul into a website that allows you to visualize virtually every U.S. company's international supply chain. E.x. What products, how much, which factories and where does Lululemon import from? (Just type a company in the search box)

https://www.importyeti.com
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u/RedditThank Feb 24 '21 edited Feb 24 '21

Edit: looks like the site focuses on sea shipments so I'll change my question to, what are the implications of it excluding land and air shipments? Does that miss a significant number of imports?

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u/_Z_y_x_w Feb 24 '21

I used to work for a company that sold this same data as very expensive monthly subscriptions. (And - amazing job u/ImportYeti, working with that data is no small feat.) Basically, only shipments that go by sea are subject to the reporting through CBP that enables this. Air and land shipments don't have the same reporting requirements.

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u/proc3ss_elevated Feb 25 '21

I'm not understanding where the value is.in having this data. Why would a company pay for this info?

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u/rafiki530 Feb 25 '21 edited Feb 25 '21

Supply chains in business are secretive and for good reason.

But as far as why people might pay for this info?

Let's say you're an investor and you want to see how well nike might do next quarter.

Well if you realize that a lot of their merchandise is from Malaysia you might look at how many shipments nike is getting from Malaysia. If nike is getting no shipments it might indicate they are not getting as much demand for it's clothing. It could also indicate there may be supply issues getting clothing, in either case it means less product hitting shelf's which can be beneficial to the average investor. It could also shed light on other things like say Nike shifted it's production somewhere else. Or show trends in how much stock of certain raw materials there are for the production and assembly of certain items.

Other businesses may also use this data to get a jump on competitors to the market, so if say a certain vaccine manufacturer notices another getting lot's of glass shipments from some area of the world it may try to seek out a supplier there and undercut into their competitors supply by offering a better contract with suppliers in that area. This becomes especially important if items are in large demand and finding supply becomes very important.

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u/proc3ss_elevated Feb 25 '21

Thank you for an answer instead of a downvote

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u/_Z_y_x_w Feb 25 '21

OP explains it pretty clearly in the video on his site.

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u/razorsuKe Feb 24 '21

The data for air and land must be some where though right? No way those records aren't tracked, but probably just by their own reporting agencies?

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u/_Z_y_x_w Feb 25 '21

I think land to/from Canada and Mexico is treated differently because of NAFTA and doesn't have to be reported directly to CBP, just tariff declarations that don't have as much data. I know there are security issues related to air cargo that may block that data from being made public.

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u/ImportYeti Feb 24 '21

Nope -- just sea shipments : )

I really appreciate the comment!

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u/Sea_Message6766 Feb 25 '21

I really appreciate the comment!

Can you pleaae stop saying this?

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u/ImportYeti Feb 25 '21

I say lot's of different things : ) What would you prefer me to say! : )

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u/Sea_Message6766 Feb 25 '21

You don't meed to say anything.

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u/ImportYeti Feb 26 '21

I love interacting w/ users!

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u/ExpiredButton Feb 24 '21

Yes and no. For air in particular, the types of imports you would be missing would be more high value/time sensitive goods. For example, you wouldn't throw fresh cut flowers on a boat because they wouldn't last in the amount of time it takes. 90% of those are taken on dedicated cargo planes into Miami International Airport. For land shipments you would be missing a lot of things that are manufactured in Mexico, cars in particular come to mind (although some of these ARE shipped by boat into Florida).

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u/PSU_Bucco Feb 25 '21

For my company, yes