When you need a freight forwarder to handle your overseas shipments, you face a dizzying 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.
Ocean container shipping has become very expensive – in some cases triple what it was pre-pandemic. So, you don’t want to ship more containers than needed for your volume of freight. That requires smart ocean container loading.
Who out there remembers the Liner Conference System?
The system allowed two or more ocean shipping companies to provide scheduled cargo service on a particular trade route under uniform rates and common terms.
On 18 October 2008, European Commission’s Directorate General for Competition (DG Comp) Regulation 4056 was repealed, effectively bringing an end to the 125-year conference history. In principle, that ended a system of collective rate-setting dating back to the first conference, the Calcutta Steam Traffic Conference, set up by British cargo lines in 1875.
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.
Cargo that doesn’t fit in a container costs more to ship than cargo that does. It's also way more complicated to ship out of gauge cargo via ocean. A lot more rules to be followed to ensure safety and security, door to door. All that complexity creates time and headaches for shipping departments.
To ease the burden on your staff, and your wallet, we put together a detailed online eBook that covers just about every aspect of shipping out of gauge cargo globally. Link to that eBook here.
Companies that ship a lot of ocean freight do a pretty good job of insuring themselves against workman’s comp claims and office building fires. But most of them fail to protect the full value of their import or export cargo with marine cargo insurance, despite potential losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars per shipment.
Hazmat cargo.
The phrase can conjure images of skull & crossbones stickers on steel drums with contents that can melt through just about anything. But when it comes to shipping, even some common items in your house are considered hazmat – like paint, perfume, deodorant, glue, and glass cleaners.
Freight marketplaces for ocean freight are gaining in popularity. But does this online booking option really align with your needs as a shipper? Here’s an overview of things to consider when examining the freight forwarder vs freight marketplace choice.
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.
Nine of the top 20 countries that sell goods into Canada are in Europe, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade. If you want to learn how to make this trade route more profitable through efficient global transportation, here’s a quick guide.
