THE skyrocketing price of shipping goods across the globe may hit your pocketbook sooner than you think — from that cup of coffee you get each morning to the toys you were thinking of buying your kids.

Transporting a 40-foot steel container of cargo by sea from Shanghai to Rotterdam now costs a record US$10,522, a whopping 547 percent higher than the seasonal average over the last five years, according to Drewry Shipping.

With upwards of 80 percent of all goods trade transported by sea, freight-cost surges are threatening to boost the price of everything from toys, furniture and car parts to coffee, and anchovies, compounding concerns in global markets already bracing for accelerating inflation.

“In 40 years in toy retailing I have never known such challenging conditions from the point of view of pricing,” said Gary Grant, the founder and executive chairman of the U.K. toy shop The Entertainer.

He has had to stop importing giant teddy bears from China because their retail price would have had to double to add in higher freight costs. “Will this have an impact on retail prices? My answer has to be yes.”

A confluence of factors — soaring demand, a shortage of containers, saturated ports and too few ships and dock workers — have contributed to the squeeze on transportation capacity on every freight path.

Recent COVID-19 outbreaks in Asian export hubs like China have made matters worse.

The pain is most acutely felt on longer-distance routes, making shipping from Shanghai to Rotterdam 67 percent more expensive than to the U.S. West Coast, for instance.

(SD-Agencies)