Methodology & sources

ImportHawk reports are built from US Customs and Border Protection bill-of-lading filings for ocean freight into the United States. These are public records. We do not scrape private databases or sell access to raw firehoses.

For each live vertical we hand-select roughly 25 category leaders (importers, brands, and distributors that matter to operators). Every quarter we match consignees and shippers in the customs record to that set, score match confidence, and surface what changed: new supplier relationships, origin shifts, volume swings, and shared-sourcing patterns.

Each subscriber edition includes a written executive summary, notable movements with confidence ratings, origin and supplier views, company shipment tables, and (on Pro and Enterprise) an Excel companion with the matched shipment rows behind the charts.

Coverage is intentional, not exhaustive. If a company is not on our tracked list for a vertical, it will not appear until we add it. Enterprise coffee plans can add custom companies to the set.

Questions about a specific match or source row: hello@importhawk.com.