What Is Shipped Through the Strait of Hormuz?
Updated March 31st, 2026 The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway separating Iran to the north from Oman and the United Arab Emirates to the south. It connects the Persian Gulf, home to some of the world’s largest oil and gas reserves, to the Gulf of Oman and, from there, to the open ocean….
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Differences Between Inventory Management vs Inventory Control
If you’ve spent any time reading about supply chain operations, you’ve noticed that “inventory management” and “inventory control” get used as if they mean the same thing. They don’t. And if you’re running an ecommerce business or evaluating a 3PL partner, misunderstanding them can cost you money. Both deal with stock. Both happen inside warehouses….
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The Difference Between DIM Weight vs Actual Weight. Which Do Carriers Use?
If you ship products regularly, you’ve no doubt run into the issue of why a box that weighs only 8 pounds gets billed like it weighs 15? The answer comes down to dimensional weight, shortened to DIM weight. Carriers don’t just ask, “How heavy is this package?” They also ask, “How much room does it take up…
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The Difference Between Back Order vs Pre-Order & When Should You Use Each
If you’ve mastered the difference between a backorder and an out-of-stock status, you’re ahead of most eCommerce outfits. But there’s another distinction that trips up even experienced merchandisers and that’s back order vs. pre-order. Both keep your cart open when inventory isn’t sitting on the shelf. Both collect revenue before the product ships. And both,…
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Fill Rate vs OTIF
Fill rate is a warehouse metric. It captures the percentage of customer orders you can fulfill immediately from stock on hand. If ten orders come in and you can ship nine of them complete from existing inventory, your fill rate is 90%. The question fill rate answers is ‘did we have the product ready?’ On…
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Is Ecommerce Still Growing?
As of March, 2026, the freshest U.S. numbers are clear. The U.S. Census Bureau says retail ecommerce sales reached $1.2337 trillion in 2025, up 5.4% year over year. Total retail sales also grew, but more slowly, and ecommerce finished the year at 16.4% of all retail sales. In the fourth quarter alone, U.S. ecommerce sales hit $316.1 billion, up 5.3% from a year earlier, while total…
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How Much of the World’s Shipping & Oil Goes Through the Strait of Hormuz? 2025 vs 2026 Percentages of Global Supply
Updated August 5th, 2026 The Strait of Hormuz is 21 miles wide at its narrowest. Two shipping lanes, each about two miles across, separated by a two-mile buffer. That’s the entire passage connecting the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, and since late February 2026 it has been closed to most commercial traffic for long…
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Why Poor Inventory Management Kills Most Crowdfunding Ventures
Crowdfunding’s dangerous illusion built into it is that once the campaign funds, it feels like you’ve already won. You haven’t. In ops terms, you’ve accepted a wave of customer orders for a product that may still be evolving, with costs that are still moving, across countries you may not be ready to ship to. That…
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Is a Picker-Packer Job Hard?
Picker-packer is one of the most common entry points into supply chain work. But before you apply, you probably want a straight answer – is the job hard? The answer is yes, it can be. But the degree of difficulty depends heavily on who you work for, what technology is in the building, and how…
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What Ecommerce Shops Should Know Right Now on the Strait of Hormuz Disruption
Updated March 11, 2026 What changed in the last two weeks? The Strait of Hormuz disruption went from scenario planning into day-to-day execution for shipping teams.UN Trade and Development published a rapid analysis on March 10, 2026, tying the shock to energy, fertilizer, and transport cost pressure.This same week, JMIC advisories showed Strait traffic dropping…
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