"After supply chain worries earlier this year, inventories are plentiful this fall," said Jonathan Gold, NRF vice president for supply chain and customs policy. "Shoppers should have no worries about finding what they’re looking for as they begin their holiday shopping."

Ports covered by Global Port Tracker handled 1.62 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units in July, the latest month for which after-the-fact numbers are available. That was up 2.9 percent from June and 8.1 percent from July 2014. One TEU is one 20-foot-long cargo container or its equivalent.

August was estimated at 1.6 million TEU, up 5.5 percent from 2014. September is forecast at 1.61 million TEU, up 1.2 percent from last year; October at 1.62 million TEU, up 3.8 percent; November at 1.5 million TEU, up 7.9 percent, and December at 1.44 million TEU, down 0.2 percent.

Those numbers would bring 2015 to a total of 18.2 million TEU, up 5.4 percent from last year. The first half of 2015 totaled 8.9 million TEU, up 6.5 percent over the same period last year.

January 2016 is forecast at 1.44 million TEU, up 16.9 percent from weak numbers seen a year earlier just before West Coast dockworkers agreed on a new contract that ended a months-long labor dispute.

Hackett Associates founder Ben Hackett said economists have been watching a “stubbornly high” inventory-to-sales ratio this summer. But he said the cause appears to be the flood of cargo that came after the new West Coast dockworkers’ contract was signed rather than weakness in demand.

Global Port Tracker, which is produced for NRF by the consulting firm Hackett Associates, covers the U.S. ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma on the West Coast; New York/New Jersey, Hampton Roads, Charleston, Savannah, Port Everglades and Miami on the East Coast; and Houston on the Gulf Coast.

Source: NRF