The real gifts that keep on giving are supply chains.

From Marketplace, I'm Sabrina Benshore in for David Bruncaccio.

Merry Christmas, and as you unwrap your gifts today, give a thought to the supply chains that brought them to you.

From manufacturer to warehouser, to retailer, to living room,

those supply chains recently did something that they have not done before.

The warehouse part of that supply chain shrank.

Companies in November stocked fewer goods in warehouses than they did the month before.

That is the first time that warehouse utilization, as it is called,

has contracted in the history of the survey that found this out. It's called the Logistics Managers Index.

Marketplaces Justin Ho looked into why demand for warehousing space has been soft lately.

A big reason why companies haven't been stuffing as many goods in warehouses this holiday season is because

they already did that earlier in the year, says Dale Rogers at Arizona State University.

Because of the tariffs and uncertainty, we saw really the fourth quarter surge happen in the early

summer. As a result, Rogers says companies are focusing on emptying out their warehouses,

and he says they're not likely to restock them anytime soon.

Because of real nervousness about the economy.

That's because in some sectors, consumer demand has been weakening.

Jason Miller at Michigan State University says that

includes manufacturing, which uses a lot of warehousing space to store inventory. So essentially,

you have a soft manufacturing sector right now, and that means you're going to be needing

essentially less warehousing space. Miller says other sectors simply aren't sure where consumer

demand is headed.

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