"Recently, many shipping companies have started to adjust freight rates on various routes around the world. As the freight rates start to rise, how to save money from the transport link in international shipping? This is a great concern for cargo owners.
For a professional freight forwarder, not only to understand the shipping market, know how to deal with the shipping company, but also to master the skills and methods, in order to ensure the safety and efficiency of the goods at the same time, as far as possible for the owners to save transport costs.
01、Scientific planning of transport routes
Scientific planning of cargo transport routes is very necessary. For example, to European ports, although most shipping companies have the difference between basic and non-basic ports, but the difference in their freight rates may be between $100 and $200. This cost will vary with the division of different shipping companies, and understanding the division of different companies can help you to get the most favourable tariffs by choosing a shipping company.
For example, there are two ways of transporting to the east coast ports of the U.S., the all-waterway and the continental bridge, and the price difference between the two may be several hundred U.S. dollars. If you don't want to catch up with the shipping schedule, you can ask the shipping company for the all-water way.
02、Reasonable design of packaging
Each means of transport has a carrying weight and maximum volume restrictions, then the design of goods packaging should consider this point. For example, the owner of the number of goods after calculating the number of boxes have excess space or insufficient space, then the number of goods to change. For example, the two orders will be combined in a full container, or the excess number of reserved for the next shipment, so that the cost savings will be considerable.
In addition, before shipment, but also on the product packaging for scientific calculations, the specific approach is to refer to the volume of the container, according to the number of orders to design the packaging; and then according to the size of the container box design carton size, study a best boxing programme, making the container to achieve an ideal state.
03、Adopt suitable transport mode for port collection
Goods in the mainland can choose different inland transport modes of port collection, generally speaking, train transport is the cheapest, but the delivery and pick-up procedures are complicated, suitable for large quantities of goods and do not catch up with the delivery time. Truck transport is the simplest and fastest, but slightly more expensive than train transport. The most expensive is in the factory or warehouse directly loaded container, suitable for those who are not suitable for multiple loading and unloading of goods.
Under the premise of full understanding of the goods, scientific selection of the optimal port collection and transport mode can save transport costs.
04, Reasonable handling of LCL cargo
The transport procedure of LCL cargo is much more complicated than that of whole container, and the freight is relatively mobile. There are many transport companies doing LCL, and the price will be relatively transparent in the shipping market. Of course, there are open market prices for LCL cargoes, but the surcharges of each transport company vary greatly, so the tariffs on the price list of the transport company will only be part of the final charges.
(1) Confirm all the items of the charges in writing and see whether their quotation is a lump sum price.
(2) Calculate the weight and size of the goods clearly to prevent the other party from tampering with it.
(3) You can find a company specialising in LCL, which directly assembles containers, and the tariffs and surcharges they charge are much lower than those charged by intermediary companies.
05. Bargaining with shipping companies
Master the skills of bargaining with shipping companies:
(1) If you are really a big customer, you can directly contract with the shipping company and apply for preferential tariffs.
(2) Find out the different tariffs for different cargo names. Most shipping companies charge separately for goods, and some goods can be categorised in different ways.
(3) If you don't want to catch up with the schedule, you can choose a slow ship or a non-direct ship, of course, this must be on the premise of not affecting the on-time arrival.
(4) Freight prices in the shipping market change from time to time, so it is better to have more information about freight rates.
Summary
For freight forwarders, in international shipping transport, if the scientific planning can indeed save money. But saving transport costs is not in the tariffs, because the most important thing in the transport of goods is the safety of goods and transport efficiency.
For cargo owners, the best choice is to find a professional freight forwarder. Professional freight forwarders contract with the shipping company, you can get the price from the shipping company will be very cheap; Secondly, the long-term cooperation of the freight forwarding company with more tacit understanding, generally can get lower freight rates.
