A rollover is when the shipping line leaves your container off the vessel it was booked on and loads it on the next one. Your cargo is not lost: it is a week or more late, with your planning inside it.
Why it happens
Carriers oversell space the way airlines oversell seats, and when the vessel is full somebody stays behind. It also happens for reasons on your side: a missed documentary or physical cut-off, a B/L held up, a late export clearance. In peak season, with vessels full, rollovers become routine.
When it hits you importing from China
Exactly when you have the least margin: before Golden Week, in the pre-Christmas peak, when the whole industry ships at once. One week of delay at origin can mean missing the entire selling window at destination.
The common mistake
Booking at the last minute with no buffer in peak season. The defense is operational: cargo and documents ready well before the cut-off, early booking, a forwarder with volume and carrier relationships, and slack in the dates you commit downstream. A peak-season ETD is treated as an estimate, never as a promise.
Shipping in peak season? Write to us early and we plan the booking with our sea freight service.
