Businesses are panic-buying … again.
According to the GEP Global Supply Chain Volatility Index, a monthly survey of 27,000 businesses, safety stockpiling in May 2026 hit its highest level since January 2023. Companies across North America, Europe, and Asia are bulk-ordering raw materials and finished goods to get ahead of anticipated price increases and potential supply disruptions tied to the Middle East conflict, elevated transportation costs, and ongoing tariff pressure.
That's a big number. And for 3PLs and e-commerce warehouses managing inventory on behalf of multiple clients, it creates a very specific problem: When your clients stockpile, your warehouse absorbs the consequences.
More stock. Less predictability. Tighter space. More SKUs. All at once.
If your systems aren't built to handle that kind of volume surge cleanly, things go sideways fast, and often quietly, before anyone realizes how badly.
The GEP data shows this isn't one thing. It's a few pressures hitting at the same time.
Inflation hedging. Manufacturers are pulling purchasing forward before they expect prices to climb again in the back half of 2026. GEP's vice president of consulting said the path for inflation is already being set, and companies are trying to limit the damage ahead of time.
Supply shortages. Material shortages got worse in May, reaching their highest point in three and a half years. When supply feels uncertain, businesses stockpile to build a buffer.
Transportation cost pressure. Freight costs soared to a record high in April (going back to 2005) before easing slightly in May, but they're still running at the second-highest level since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. That makes the timing of purchases feel more urgent.
North America, specifically. The North America index rose to 1.69 in May, its highest since August 2022. U.S. manufacturers drove most of that, speeding up purchasing and building warehouse buffers more aggressively than the month before.
GEP calls the combination of the first three a rare signal, especially with stockpiling, shortages, and high transport costs holding for three straight months. Outside the 2021 to 2023 supply chain crisis, this pattern has usually been followed by a sharp correction.
That correction could come through a demand pullback, weakening economic conditions, or both. Which means the businesses building inventory now may soon be sitting on more stock than their customers actually need.
Stockpiling as a strategy isn't wrong on its own. Building a buffer against price increases and supply disruptions makes sense, as long as it's managed carefully. But there are real risks that can turn a smart defensive move into an operational headache ...
Warehouse space runs out faster than expected. When multiple clients are building safety stock at the same time, space gets eaten up quickly. Without real-time visibility into occupancy by client and SKU, you don't see the crunch coming until you're already in it.
Carrying costs add up. Holding inventory isn't free. Storage fees, insurance, labor for putaway and cycle counts, and the cost of capital you've got tied up all climb when stock levels rise. If your clients' goods are sitting longer than planned, those costs need to be tracked and billed accurately.
SKU proliferation gets harder to manage. Stockpiling often means ordering across a wider range of SKUs to hedge against specific shortages. More SKUs means more locations, more pick complexity, and more chances for inventory accuracy to slip. In a warehouse running multiple client accounts, an inventory error doesn't just affect one client. It hits billing, fulfillment SLAs, and client trust, which is exactly where inventory and order management across clients has to be airtight.
Demand signals get harder to read. When companies buy ahead, the demand data they send you stops reflecting real end customer demand. You might see purchase orders spike, then drop off sharply once clients start drawing down inventory. If your replenishment logic or min/max settings aren't calibrated for that pattern, you end up ordering too much or too little at exactly the wrong moment.
The correction can hit hard. GEP notes that historically, when stockpiling, shortages, and transportation costs all rise together, the index tends to correct itself sharply as demand pulls back. For 3PLs, that means you could go from "not enough space" to "inventory sitting longer than expected" in a short window. Both are hard to manage without clear real-time data.
Inventory volatility at this scale needs a WMS that gives you more than a record of what's on the shelves. It needs to tell you what's changing, why, and what it costs you, client by client and SKU by SKU.
Here's where Zenventory's inventory management for 3PLs running multiple client accounts makes a real difference ...
Real-time inventory visibility across every client. Zenventory tracks inventory across all your client accounts in real time. When a client's stock levels spike, you see it by SKU, by location, by aging. That's what lets you manage space before it becomes a problem instead of after.
Accurate billing when volume surges. One of the messiest parts of a stockpile surge for 3PLs is billing. More storage means more storage fees. Receiving more freight piles on accessorial charges, and heavier pick volume adds labor on top of that. Zenventory's automated billing tracks all of it (receipt fees, storage fees, handling charges), so when clients' volumes jump, your invoicing keeps up without manual reconciliation.
Inventory aging and turnover tracking. As clients build safety stock, some of it will sit longer than expected, especially if the demand correction GEP warns about actually shows up. Zenventory tracks inventory age by client and SKU, so you can spot slow moving stock before it becomes a space problem and have conversations with clients about drawdown timing that are actually backed by data.
Order management built in. When your clients do start pulling down their safety stock through customer orders, Zenventory's built in order management handles fulfillment directly. No separate OMS, no manual handoff. That matters when fulfillment volumes ramp up fast after a stockpile period.
Multi-carrier shipping. Rate volatility is part of what's driving this stockpiling surge in the first place. Zenventory's built in multi-carrier shipping lets you shop rates across carriers right at the moment of fulfillment, so when freight costs eventually ease (as GEP expects), you capture those savings automatically instead of being locked into a single carrier contract.
The GEP data suggests the current stockpiling wave may be closer to its peak than its start. Here's where to put your attention ...
Audit your space utilization by client. If you don't have a clear, real-time view of how much of your warehouse floor each client is using, that's the first thing to fix. You need to know where you're tight before clients start sending more freight.
Check your billing setup for surge scenarios. Are your rate cards and billing rules set up to capture higher storage fees, receiving fees, and handling charges accurately as volumes climb? Manual invoicing during a surge is where billing errors compound.
Talk to your clients about their plans. Most 3PLs wait for clients to flag volume changes. The better move right now is to reach out first. Ask clients whether they're building safety stock and what their drawdown timeline looks like. That information is useful operationally, and it positions you as a strategic partner instead of just a warehouse vendor.
Make sure your WMS gives you inventory aging data. If clients are building stock now and planning to draw it down over months, you need to know how long that inventory has been sitting, both for client reporting and for your own space planning.
Safety stockpiling is the practice of buying and holding more inventory than current demand requires, to create a buffer against future price increases, supply shortages, or shipping disruptions. When many companies stockpile at the same time, it creates upstream demand spikes that stretch supply chain capacity.
The GEP Global Supply Chain Volatility Index shows that safety stockpiling in May 2026 reached its highest level since January 2023. The main drivers are expected inflation in the back half of the year, material shortages that worsened to a three and a half year high, high transportation costs tied to the Middle East conflict and oil price volatility, and ongoing tariff pressure in North America.
When clients stockpile, the volume and complexity of goods flowing into 3PL warehouses climbs fast and often unpredictably. That puts pressure on space, labor, receiving capacity, billing accuracy, and inventory systems. Without real-time visibility across every client account, 3PLs can find themselves stretched thin when volume spikes, then holding excess inventory when client demand pulls back.
The most important ones are real-time inventory visibility across every client, automated billing that accurately captures storage and handling charges as volumes move, inventory aging tracking, and order management to handle fulfillment when clients start drawing down stock. A WMS built for 3PLs like Zenventory handles all of these in one platform instead of needing a separate system for each.
GEP's analysts note that historically, this combination of high stockpiling, shortages, and transportation costs has been followed by a sharp correction as companies finish building their buffers and pull back on purchasing. GEP's vice president of consulting expects economic conditions to weaken in the back half of 2026 as companies draw down the inventories they've built up.
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