Outsourcing to a freight forwarder for small business international shipments can save you a lot of trouble and money. A good forwarder has the expertise, and the access to capacity, to keep your shipments cost-effective and trouble-free. That’s especially important when your own company has a lean staff and doesn’t have much experience with global trade.
An alarming number of shippers these days are desperately searching for someone to rescue their containers. The problem? Companies contract with steamship lines for door-to-door cargo shipping, and then the lines provide terrible service. Sometimes containers even get stranded at ports or rail terminals for weeks.
How can you avoid those problems? Let’s take a look.
Freight forwarders play a crucial role in global trade. But what is freight forwarding? Even if you’ve worked with this kind of partner in the past, you might not realize all that this service includes, or how much value you gain from the relationship.
Here’s the full story.
Port congestion, tight capacity, container shortages and other woes, all linked to pandemic-induced disruptions, have shippers tearing their hair out over ocean shipping transit time.
No one expects the global transportation pipeline to get back to normal anytime soon. But by deploying a few smart techniques you could, in some cases, shave some time off your ocean transit.
Air freight shipping is often the mode of choice for urgent deliveries, high-value cargo or sensitive product that can’t survive a lengthy trip at sea. In 2021, as ocean shippers deal with long delays and soaring rates, air freight has become a smart choice in a wider range of situations.
For small shippers, here’s a quick introduction to air cargo.
Say you’re based in Europe, and you’ve just scored a great deal on some used earth moving equipment in the US. How do you transport that machine to your location without wiping out everything you saved on the purchase? Here are some tips on shipping excavators and other large construction equipment.
When you import goods into the US, the customs clearance process could be painless. With electronic transactions, and a professional customs broker to get the job done, your cargo should usually enter the country without trouble.
But some unlucky importers make mistakes that cost them time and/or money, or may even get them into legal hot water. Here are six common pitfalls to avoid.
Many builders and remodelers in the US look to Poland as an economical source of well-made windows and doors. Given the high cost of construction materials today, importing windows and doors from Poland can prove an especially smart strategy for some professionals and do-it-yourselfers.
Here are some shipping-related things to keep in mind when you buy windows and doors from vendors in Poland.
Container shipping rates were bad enough at the start of 2021, but today they’re even steeper. As of May, transporting a container from Europe to the US costs $2,000 to $3,000 more than it did in January.
In the current market, there’s no room to negotiate with ocean carriers. But with the right strategy, it’s still possible to reduce your shipping costs.
To a novice, the Harmonized Tariff Schedule – the document that’s the key to import duties and fees – might look impenetrable. But if you bring cargo into the US, it’s crucial to get a handle on this complex list of product descriptions, each with its own 10-digit code. The HS code for international shipping assigned to a product determines how much it will cost you to clear customs and meet other requirements.
