From the desk
Insights
Short, practical notes on how to read customs and shipping records — and how not to. Every figure comes from a published SeaLines report.
- 16 September 20265 min read
Why you can't size a market by tonnage: two products hiding under one HS code
Twenty-seven per cent of December's declared vanilla weight wasn't vanilla beans. Anyone averaging across the code would have been badly wrong — in a predictable direction.
- 16 September 20266 min read
What customs filings really tell you about price
Declared value divided by declared weight is the closest thing to a real market price in the public record. It's also easy to misread. Here's how we handle it.
- 16 September 20264 min read
Buyers with only one supplier: the most useful pattern in shipping data
A buyer with proven demand and no second supplier is the pattern shipping records reveal best. The pitch to make to them isn't about price.
- 16 September 20264 min read
What's in a SeaLines monthly report
Eight sections and two appendices, in the same order every month, so your attention goes to what changed rather than to finding it.