When you need a freight forwarder to handle your overseas shipments, you face a dizzying number and variety of choices, from huge global enterprises to smaller specialty firms. How to choose a freight forwarder that matches your needs? The answer isn’t simple.
Here’s a look at what to expect as you evaluate possible partners, large and small.
If you’re moving overseas, you already have a ton on your mind—packing up your household, arranging transportation, maybe nailing down details about a job, or where you’ll live—and on and on.
So you’ll be glad to know there’s at least one thing you won’t have to do when you move: pay duties on your personal effects. At least, not if you follow the rules and present all the necessary documents.
When you need a load to arrive overseas in several days rather than several weeks, you’ll pay top dollar to send it by air. But what about less urgent cargo? If expedited shipping doesn’t fit your business model, do you simply have to accept that when your load moves by ocean, the transit will be super slow?
Not really.
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.
If you’ve done business mainly within the U.S., but now you’re starting to import or export, get ready to be thrown some curveballs. International freight forwarding is a whole different game.
Moving containers to or from Europe? You’ll face rules and situations that don’t come up when you ship from state to state. It’s important to work with service providers that understand all the subtleties.
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.
When you need to get a container to the port or rail terminal, or from port or rail terminal to its final destination, you have some choices to make. One of them is how to source that over-the-road move. Should you work with the steamship line that provides the international transportation? Or should you work with a trucking broker?
Before you decide, here are some important factors to consider.
