News / Survey results: the biggest concerns for forwarders and shippers in 2025

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Forwarders are expecting to make greater use of the spot market this year, even as global economic instability leaves them concerned over rate fluctuations.

These were the findings of the first Loadstar Survey, which indicated that more than 40% of respondents believed they would be more reliant on the spot market this year, while fewer than 15% expected to contract more than 90% of their total volumes.

Xeneta chief analyst Peter Sand told The Loadstar the survey results corroborated anxieties being expressed by Xeneta customers, with the US-initiated trade war seemingly the cause.

Mr Sand advised concerned forwarders and shippers: “Keep calm, do not do anything that limits your options down the line. This includes avoiding locking yourself into a long-term contract on a tradelane that may just be prices out of the market because of tariffs.

“Still, shippers cannot just avoid contracts, and they cannot change goods suppliers from one country to another in a New York minute. So, fewer long-term contracts are being signed.”

According to the survey, of the forwarders that did not believe they would be using the spot market more this year, more than 30% said they would be using it as much as they did last year – although close to 25% claimed they would be using it less.

One shipper respondent said: “We are concerned that if we push to fix for a year, we’ll have to pay a higher rates than our current rates, which are fixed quarterly.”

Resultantly, they said, they were “considering some form of index linking to share the risk with our freight forwarders”, with one respondent also referencing the potential to turn to index-linked pricing, with Xeneta citing a growing trend towards this.

“More and more shippers are using index-linked contracts to manage this unpredictability, whereby the rate paid tracks the market at agreed thresholds,” said Mr Sand.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the present economic uncertainty engendered by the return of Donald Trump to the White House predominated the response to a question on the biggest concerns for forwarders and shippers for 2025.

But, with the survey having closed before the president announced that he was imposing global tariffs ranging from 10%-54% on all countries, a new response may be higher.

Even so, Mr Sand warned forwarders and shippers against hasty reactions, stressing that “you cannot base your freight procurement strategy on political rhetoric. Even as we now know tariffs on US imports are set – will they stay like that; go up, down, stay or away?”

However, he recognised the uncertainty around US imports, policies, and geopolitical stand-offs meant that rates would become more volatile.

That threat of volatility has prompted concern over service reliability, with survey respondents ranking this as their biggest worry, ahead of rate fluctuations and the impact on global trade from US tariffs. Forwarders even told The Loadstar the tariff impact may have been overblown.

Mr Sand said: “Reliability was set to return to higher ground in 2025, from Covid years and Red Sea disruption. Now that may just have gone down the drain.

“The reshuffle of alliance services may also have rattled shipper trust in reliability promises made (and broken?). Time will tell.

“Two obvious concerns I would be adding are overall demand and Red Sea return, to join the other two on the podium in a shared third spot.”

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