WSI’s Warehouse Wire: August 21, 2026

Your connection to what’s happening in warehousing, transportation, and supply chain operations.

This month’s edition looks at B2B ecommerce moving deeper into industrial distribution, how EPA review timelines may affect chemical reshoring, lessons from the Axios software supply chain attack, and what shippers should reconsider during RFP season. It also explores infrastructure needed to rebuild domestic textile manufacturing and what an early retail import peak means for storage and distribution.

These stories point to supply chains becoming more exposed to forces outside traditional logistics, including regulatory timelines and software dependencies. For operations teams, that means capacity planning, technology oversight, transportation strategy, and inventory positioning must account for changes happening well before freight reaches the warehouse.

Check back monthly for timely headlines and practical insight into warehousing and supply chain operations.

B2B ecommerce is accelerating: Industrial distribution has to catch up

B2B ecommerce is becoming a core part of industrial sales rather than a side channel. MarketScale points to companies leading the operations.

Bero pairs digital ordering with rep-led account relationships. Nissin Foods USA is applying AI to supply chain operations, while Fastenal reported continued digital sales growth in the second quarter even as the company changed CEOs.

The overarching change is operational, meaning digital commerce is moving deeper into the business model rather than simply changing how buyers place orders.¹

A digital portal can make ordering easier, but the experience still depends on inventory records matching what is actually available and orders moving through the warehouse accurately. Systems must carry customer and order data cleanly from purchase through shipment. Industrial distributors accustomed to larger, relationship-driven orders may face a different mix of order sizes and service expectations as self-service buying grows.

For distributors, the question is becoming less about whether customers will use ecommerce and more about whether fulfillment operations can support the buying experience they are being promised. That puts warehouse execution behind what may appear, at first, to be a sales-channel decision.

Chemical reshoring could hinge on faster EPA reviews

A slower regulatory review process may be affecting where chemical companies decide to invest. A new Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates survey found that nearly 93% of respondents believe a faster, more predictable TSCA Section 5 review process would make reshoring manufacturing to the United States more likely. More than 60% said EPA reviews of new chemicals now regularly take longer than a year.²

The business effects extend beyond delayed approvals. Among companies affected by review delays, 82% reported lost business opportunities and 70% said projects had been canceled. Two-thirds said the delays are influencing decisions about where manufacturing is located.

The findings come as Congress considers reauthorization of the EPA’s TSCA New Chemicals Program user-fee authority ahead of its September 30 expiration.

If regulatory timelines become more predictable and additional chemical production moves domestically, the logistics footprint will need to move with it. New or expanded plants would create demand for compliant storage close to production and alter the transportation lanes serving those facilities. The specific chemistry also determines what a warehouse must be permitted and equipped to handle. Reshoring chemical manufacturing is a production decision, but it can quickly become a warehousing and distribution decision as well.

What the Axios attack reveals about supply chain vulnerabilities

The March compromise of the Axios npm package offers a useful reminder that supply chain exposure is not limited to physical suppliers. According to Supply & Demand Chain Executive, attackers used a stolen maintainer credential to introduce a malicious dependency into the software ecosystem. Within roughly three hours, pipelines and production environments tied to 174,000 dependent packages were potentially exposed.³

What makes the incident relevant to operations leaders is where the vulnerability sat. The malicious code was reportedly hidden inside a dependency below the named Axios package, making the risk harder to see through ordinary vendor oversight. Modern warehouse and transportation operations rely heavily on software, including ERP, WMS, and TMS platforms, along with integrations and third-party tools that may contain their own open-source dependencies.

That expands the definition of supplier risk. A company may have strong controls around physical suppliers and service providers while knowing far less about the software components supporting daily operations.

The Axios incident suggests technology due diligence should include dependency awareness and response planning alongside traditional cybersecurity reviews. When a compromise can move through connected systems within hours, knowing where critical software dependencies sit becomes part of supply chain continuity planning.

RFP season puts carrier strategy and transportation costs back under review

Transportation RFP season can easily become a rate exercise, but FleetOwner argues that the process is more useful when shippers also examine how their freight network is operating. Shipment forecasts, appointment practices, dwell time, and freight consistency all influence how carriers plan capacity, which means operational issues can show up later in both price and service.⁴

That makes an RFP a natural point to revisit assumptions that may have gone largely untouched since the last bid cycle. Freight patterns may have shifted, problem lanes may be consuming more time than expected, or appointment windows may no longer reflect how facilities operate. Better information gives carriers a clearer picture of the freight they are pricing and gives shippers a better way to separate market costs from problems created inside the network.

FleetOwner also notes that all-in pricing can obscure what is driving transportation spend by combining linehaul and fuel into a single number. Breaking those costs apart can make negotiations more useful. For shippers heading into RFP season, the strongest bid process may be the one that leaves the transportation network better understood, regardless of which carrier ultimately wins the freight.

Reshoring textiles means rebuilding the manufacturing infrastructure around them

A new Pentagon-backed initiative is putting significant funding behind the effort to rebuild US textile manufacturing, but the project is focused on creating a modern production base rather than recreating the industry of decades past. FutureTEX will receive $36 million in its first year and could reach $480 million over 10 years, with North Carolina State University leading the initiative and Georgia Tech serving as a core founding partner.⁵

The scale of the rebuild is notable. Georgia Tech reports that nearly 70% of clothing purchased by Americans was made domestically when researcher Sundaresan Jayaraman arrived at the university in 1985. Today, that figure is about 3%. FutureTEX plans to address that decline through manufacturing technology, workforce development, facility modernization, and a clearer inventory of domestic supplier capabilities.

Bringing production back requires infrastructure around the factory as well. Textile manufacturers need places to hold raw materials and stage components before finished goods move into distribution. The same is true for sectors that use technical textiles in defense applications. Domestic manufacturing capacity can grow only as quickly as the supporting network can receive materials, hold inventory, and keep production supplied.

Retailers pulled peak season forward. Now the pressure shifts to storage and distribution

Retail peak season arrived early in 2026, and the next challenge is managing the inventory that has already entered the country. The National Retail Federation says retailers pulled merchandise forward ahead of late-July tariff changes and other supply chain uncertainty. U.S. ports covered by Global Port Tracker handled 2.23 million TEU in June, up 13.2% from a year earlier, while the first half of 2026 reached 12.7 million TEU, a 1.1% year-over-year increase.⁶

The pattern is expected to change as the year progresses. July imports were projected at 2.21 million TEU, down 7.6% year over year, and August at 2.22 million TEU, down 4.2%. NRF expects monthly import volumes to ease for much of the remainder of 2026, even though most months are forecast to remain above last year’s levels.

An earlier import peak effectively moves the pressure inland sooner for retail distribution operations. Inventory that arrived ahead of tariffs still needs to be stored and allocated so it can move into stores or other distribution points on the right schedule. That can put warehouse capacity and inventory planning under strain well before the traditional holiday shipping rush begins, especially when companies deliberately carry goods earlier than demand requires.

References

1. https://www.marketscale.com/industries/business-services/b2b-ecommerce-is-eating-industrial-sales-faster-than-most-distributors-are-ready-for
2. https://chemanager-online.com/en/news/chemical-makers-say-faster-epa-reviews-could-bring-manufacturing-back-to-the-us
3. https://www.sdcexec.com/safety-security/risk-compliance/article/22968535/anvilogic-why-axios-attack-is-more-about-supply-chain-management-than-cybersecurity
4. https://www.fleetowner.com/perspectives/ideaxchange/blog/55398417/how-transportation-rfps-can-improve-fleet-costs-service-and-carrier-performance
5. https://coe.gatech.edu/news/2026/08/georgia-tech-chosen-founding-partner-pentagon-initiative-rebuild-us-textile
6. https://nrf.com/media-center/press-releases/import-cargo-s-early-peak-season-is-winding-down?_sp=40c4ee4b-c058-4461-9a02-5323ad378c05.1787065473305