Retailers’ holiday orders have been slow to come in this year at Cloud b, a Gardena company that makes children’s sleep products and toys.

“Our warehouse is not as full as we’d like it to be,” said Chief Executive Linda Suh, whose products are manufactured mostly in China. “The retail climate’s just so on edge. It’s really nothing like we’ve seen.”

Normally at this time of year, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are inundated with cargo bound by truck or train for retailers across the country preparing for the holiday shopping boom.

But fallout from last year’s labor dispute, unusually high store inventories, and uncertainty about the impact of online sales on the holiday season all might be having an impact on the usually flush goods movement from August through October.

“What is noticeable about holiday peak this year is that there is no peak,” said Noel Hacegaba, chief commercial officer and managing director of commercial operations at the Port of Long Beach.

Maritime consulting firm Hackett Associates, which tracks cargo numbers at 12 American ports, said in an August report that while July imports were up 1.5 percent over the same month last year, slight declines were expected in August and September. Through the end of the year, the firm estimated imports would rebound.

That might reinforce what Suh has seen, noting that many of her customers, which include national chains such as Babies R Us, Toys R Us, Buybuy Baby, and Target, have pushed back their orders to later in the year. The delay, Suh said, might be attributed to fears about what online sales will mean for brick-and-mortar shops.

“It seems like a lot of the retailers are being super-conservative going into the fourth quarter,” said Suh.

Stocking up

Another explanation, said Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy for the National Retail Federation in Washington D.C., is that many retailers have more inventory than usual.

The United States had the highest inventory-to-sales retail ratios in the first half of the year since the midst of the recession in 2009, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The ratio indicates how closely stores’ expected supply needs measured up to actual sales; the higher the ratio, the more overstock they had. For most of the year, that ratio has been about 1.5, hitting 1.52 in March.

Gold said this is because retailers have learned not to depend on a single surge of shipments after the cargo congestion and delivery delays that stemmed from last year’s labor dispute at West Coast ports.

“You’ve got folks that have been spreading out their peak season and not bringing it in at one time because of issues we’ve had in the past, like congestion,” he said.

Other factors, such as online shopping, are leading retailers to keep more merchandise in their warehouses for online orders before filling stores at the holidays, Hacegaba said.

As a result, the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles have seen mixed results this year, with imports fluctuating between months. Through July, overall L.A. cargo was up 4.75 percent compared with last year, while volumes were down 1.9 percent through July in Long Beach.

Nationally, first-quarter containerized cargo was up 7.8 percent year over year, said Phillip Sanfield, a Port of Los Angeles spokesman.

“We started the year particularly strong,” he said.

Whether retailers are delaying imports and storing inventory out of economic uncertainty or simply changing how they do business in response to logistical concerns, this transition isn’t just altering what cargo carriers and manufacturers such as Cloud b can expect.

The holiday cargo numbers are often a key indicator of stores’ confidence in consumer spending over the all-important holiday retail season as well as a bellwether of the nation’s economy.

“Historically, we have looked at peak season as an overall barometer of the health of the economy,” Long Beach port’s Hacegaba said. “The fact that there is no peak makes that barometer a little less telling.”

Retail sales had a lukewarm start to the year, with sales up 2.3 percent nationally in the first seven months, according to the Census Bureau.

Gold said sales have been better and noted the back-to-school retail season was strong.

Another key economic indicator, consumer confidence, hit an almost one-year high last month, the Conference Board, a New York nonprofit business research association, said last week.

“We’re expecting sales to be good throughout the rest of the year,” Gold said.