What is a Freight Forwarder?
We are in an age of eCommerce, with speed and cost at the forefront of every shopper’s mind. To respond to this, businesses can use parcel courier services to import and export small quantities of goods, but when it comes to larger shipments they might seek freight forwarders to handle the job.
Freight forwarding involves the movement of goods on behalf of other importers and exporters, all over the world. These companies specialise in moving shipments from one place to another in large quantities. They can also arrange customs clearance, documentation, packing and the movement of more niche products.
Freight forwarders will act as the intermediary between those importing goods and those exporting, irrespective of how those goods are moved – be it by Air, Sea or Road or a combination.
As they are specialists in their fields, the better more established freight forwarders will have an unrivalled network of contacts all over the world, giving them unique access to moving goods seamlessly where they need to go.
Some services provided by a freight forwarder are:
- They provide a variety of transport solutions to businesses who wish to send packages, crates or even shipping containers through countries across the world
- They will act on behalf of the importers and exporters to get goods or products to their destination respectfully and efficiently. This can involve booking cargo with shipping services, airlines, rail or road carriers, or even providing their own transport to carry the goods themselves
- Freight forwarders can use their up to the minute knowledge to take care of any paperwork such as customs clearance, arranging insurance and ensuring the low customs charges where possible.
Deciding whether to use a freight forwarder or not depends on your business and whether you feel it is worth outsourcing these processes to ultimately save you time and possibly consolidate your costs.
What are the Benefits of Using a Freight Forwarder?
Freight forwarders offer you their services which come with expert knowledge of complex processes as well as their access to seamlessly move your goods from country to country.
Overall, a freight forwarding company could help you with the following:
- Saving you time and money (obviously this comes with an initial upfront cost)
- Cutting out stress by cutting down on complex paperwork.
- Access to shipping and haulage companies and a network of trustworthy suppliers.
- Help you to cut costs as their network allows them leverage to negotiate on prices.
- Their expertise will bring you peace of mind knowing they are doing their job correctly and errors will be kept significantly lower.
At Xpediator our freight forwarding services are largely provided under the Delamode brand. The division specialises in connecting CEE countries and the UK, whilst also offering international freight management solutions via sea and air.
As mentioned above, the best freight forwarders can offer an extensive network to provide the most efficient global service and Xpediator can do exactly that. The division has a network of offices in the UK, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Moldova, providing comprehensive groupage and full load road services linking Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Baltics with Western Europe.
Find out more about these services here: https://xpediator.com/divisions/freight-forwarding/
