What is a freight forwarder ?
Freight forwarding is the service that most importers and exporters use to arrange shipments. Freight forwarders are licensed experts who understand how the end-to-end shipping process works and can do it on your behalf. Essentially a freight company or freight broker, not involved in international shipping. Some specialize as ocean or air freight forwarders.
Finding a good freight forwarder is critical to the success of your business.
What does the freight forwarding service include?
The freight forwarding service content.
1. Consignment, warehousing and packaging of goods
International freight can do a good job in transportation matters in operation, freight forwarding service including the consignment of goods, product storage management, packaging, etc. After these are done, the products can be directly transported to the designated location, and charter flights, ships or cabins can be used. way of transport.
2. Organize cargo handling and transportation
In financial services, cargo loading and unloading, container unpacking, distribution, and transit all have needs. Technical service personnel can provide cargo loading, unloading and transportation services, and can provide short- or long-distance, transit and other freight forwarding service .
3. Issue settlement and delivery freight
In the process of international cargo transportation, it is also necessary to issue the goods, relevant documents, delivery freight, settlement and delivery of miscellaneous fees. Expense preparation and planning can be made according to the transportation situation of the goods and the route of handover.
4. Do a good job in the transportation of international exhibits, personal items and transit items
There are quite a variety of products in international freight transportation, mainly cross-international product transportation, including personal effects, international exhibits, required products and transit goods. There are many types of products transported, regardless of the type of goods.
5. Development of international express business
International freight will also carry out different businesses, including business consulting, and international freight forwarding business. According to different business situations, the competent commercial department will also make corresponding arrangements to make the express business run more smoothly.
What can an excellent freight forwarding service bring you?
1. Conducive to the development of the core business of the enterprise
“Technology has specialization”, for non-logistics enterprises, it is difficult to be comprehensive in logistics.
Therefore, enterprises should concentrate on the business they are familiar with, allocate resources to the core business, concentrate on the core business, improve the competitiveness of the enterprise, and leave auxiliary functions such as logistics to more professional freight forwarding companies.
2. Flexibility to grasp information and reduce costs
International freight forwarding service can meet these needs in a fast and cost-effective way that would otherwise be difficult for manufacturers alone. Similarly, freight forwarders also have the ability to meet the needs of potential customers of manufacturing companies, thus playing a role in facilitating communication between manufacturers and retailers.
3. Reduce investment and maximize benefits
If a company builds its own warehouses and network facilities, it requires huge investment capital and cannot make profits in the short term. This will be a heavy economic burden for companies that lack three funds, especially small and medium-sized enterprises.
However, if the freight forwarder is used, it will not only reduce the capital occupied by inventory and the investment of fixed capital, realize the rational use of resources, but also obtain a competitive advantage in the same industry.
4 Service diversification to enhance customer experience
International freight forwarding service and various logistics enterprises form alliances, learn from each other’s logistics management experience, and improve their own management level and service quality. It is conducive to realizing economies of scale and enhancing the competitiveness of enterprises.
How to choose a freight forwarding service
1. Are there abundant logistics channels?
An important factor that cargo owners need to consider when choosing a freight forwarding service is the logistics channels of the freight forwarding company. At the same time, the cargo owner chooses according to his own business scope and target market.
If you choose a freight forwarding company with rich logistics channels to cooperate, then there will be more logistics channels to choose from for delivery after that. For the time, the user experience will be better.
2. The scale of the freight forwarding company
When choosing a freight forwarding service company, it is necessary to understand the scale of the logistics company. For a newly established small company, the service level is not perfect, and the logistics channels are relatively small, so the logistics channels that can be selected are relatively limited.
Small, inexperienced companies can’t guarantee they can deal with problems because they don’t have enough experience.
Therefore, when choosing a freight forwarding company for cooperation, the cargo owner should choose a company with a certain scale, rich in logistics channels, perfect after-sales service, and a freight forwarding company with rich experience in international transportation.
Such a freight forwarding company will be more secure and will not worry about appear Runaways, closures, etc.
3. Is the freight forwarding service company professional?
As a freight forwarding company, there are many countries to be mailed and exported, so it is necessary to be familiar with the routes of the world’s geography, the location of ports, and the low level of transshipment. At present, the transportation methods cover air transportation, shipping, rail transportation, land transportation, etc.
There are many logistics channels. The freight forwarding service company must be able to recommend suitable logistics channels and transportation methods according to the characteristics of the goods.
Professional freight forwarding companies need to understand customs policies and be familiar with the rules and policies of international transportation.
4. Logistics costs
The logistics link is a very important link in international trade, and cross-border logistics determines whether the order can be successfully completed. At the same time, logistics costs affect the seller’s product pricing and the product profit that can be obtained.
For sellers with long-term logistics needs, choosing to cooperate with preferential logistics channels can save sellers a lot of logistics costs.
Therefore, when the owner chooses a freight forwarding service company, he can choose a slightly cheaper logistics price when the logistics channels and services are similar. Although the price of the freight forwarding company is not much different, it can save a lot of money. cost of.