Let's talk about reefers – but not the ones you might find at the beach. Short for refrigerated containers, these specially designed shipping containers offer perks that go beyond just keeping things fresh. They also extend the shelf life of products, making it possible to reach markets across the globe.
For decades, steamship lines have had an unspoken pact with shippers: If you’re willing to wait many weeks to have your cargo delivered, we’ll transport it thousands of miles for you, and do it for cheap. Even with relatively affordable rates, the lines made oodles of money by piling containers – as many as 24,000 TEUs on the latest ships – onto a single vessel.
All that changed with the pandemic as the lines cut capacity to address greatly decreased demand. As factories re-opened and as consumers starting shopping again, demand for container space soared – but vessel capacity did not.
Sometimes the volume of your ocean shipment easily makes up a full containerload (FCL). Sometimes the shipment is small enough to make less-than-containerload (LCL) service the best option. But the choice between FCL vs LCL shipping isn’t always clear cut. What to do then?
Here are some factors to keep in mind as you decide which service to use.
Say you need to move the machines from three shuttered US factories into a facility overseas. Or you’re providing several huge components needed to build an offshore oil rig. When you transport those items, that shipment is called heavy lift project cargo.
Project cargo might require multiple containers, it’s often heavier and bigger than the average ocean shipment, and it poses some special challenges:
If you’re looking for a trucker to move heavyweight international containers, you need to be resourceful. After all, only a fraction of carriers provide heavyweight services. When capacity gets tight, those slots fill up fast.
Filling a container is like assembling a 3D puzzle. Put the pieces together just right, and you win a prize: lower freight costs.
That’s because ocean carriers charge for transportation by the container. If you pay $3,000 to ship a 40-ft. box, that price stays the same whether you fill the box with 20 pallets of cargo or 25. The more product you fit in, the less you pay per unit.
Here’s some advice for creating a container loading plan that gives you maximum benefit for your transportation buck.
You wouldn’t put on flip-flops to climb a mountain or go running with size-12 sneakers on your size-10 feet. Ocean containers are a bit like shoes: you need the right kind, and the right size, for your specific purpose.
As a rule, the less you handle cargo, the better. But when you move heavy cargo internationally, sometimes it pays to transload. The extra handling adds a bit of risk, but if the numbers work out and your service partners do the job right, transloading can sometimes save you money.
The more cargo you fit in a shipping container, the less you spend per unit on transportation. Not only does this strategy cut your expenses, but it might gain you a competitive advantage. Here’s how one heavy goods importer gained market share and boosted its bottom line by increasing container payload.
