There are various factors that affect the freight shipping rates online including political circumstances, currency exchange rates, socio/consumer behavior, inflation, and demand. Also, there are multiple freight forwarders that have different rates for a particular consignment to be delivered.
Finding the right shipping agent is a cumbersome procedure. Sometimes you feel that you have zeroed on an agent that is too big for you or maybe too small for you. In this article, we will provide you tip on how to find out the appropriate freight forwarder agent.
1 Communication
The best way to find an appropriate freight forwarder agent is to communicate with them. There is too much volatility included in the shipping process and poor communication may further complicate the whole process. When you are associating yourself with a big freight forwarder agent, the task is left to you to find out the suitable person to communicate with. This may involve lots of call transferring, finding a dedicated agent, excuses and a lot more. Hence, if you are hiring a big agent it is important to know who will be handling your cargo and who will your point of contact in case the cargo is in transit and who will be responsible for the payments.
Smaller freight forwarder agent offers you with competitive price rate and they don’t have the problem of communication. These agents will work in close relationship with you to ensure that you are getting qualified services. Small forwarder agent has a limited group of team members that work closely to satisfy the clients. You can send the relevant information and check the current updates on the shipments. They might not have their own warehousing and distribution services but they will provide you with the relevant services. You can directly talk to the person in charge to understand the process of your shipment. You can even discuss with them ocean freight rates directly
2 Rate
Another crucial factor that impacts the shipping process is the rate. The rate revolves around overhead expense that the company has to bear, workforce, shipment volume, and destination. The large forwarder agent who ship more than 500 containers per year usually won’t negotiate with the rates, but the smaller freight forwarder agent work in close relationship with the clients and they have more domain expertise and offer exclusive deals to the customers. You can directly have a conversation with them about the rates, strategy and shipping time. Smaller freight forwarder agent works closely with you to offer you with exemplary services. LTL freight shipping rates offer you the competitive price without compromising on the quality of services.
You can use, compare shipping rate calculator to find the appropriate service provider. It helps to compare shipping rates between different providers so that you get maximum ROI for every dollar spent on your shipping and logistics activities.
The smaller freight forwarder agent may also offer you with promo codes and other blockbuster deals that can help you to save a few dollars while on the other hand for big forwarder agent it may not make a much difference.
3 Domain Expertise and Services
Shipping is a complex process and large freight forwarder agents have a different person dedicated for different jobs. They rely on the strength of their workforce and their collective knowledge. However, at times it becomes difficult to handle the team as it grows.
In contrast, the small freight forwarder agent has few persons and they rely on their expertise to develop strategies. For example, if you have hired a large shipping service provider for air freight shipping services, owing to their reputation, but they may not be able to offer you transparent services. Reason- the large scale shipping provider depend upon pricing manager for most of their decisions who don’t understand the operational needs, thus resulting into the hidden charges.
Conclusion
In the end, we would like to conclude that large shipping agent may not offer you value for money services, especially if you are a start-up. On the other hand, small shipping service provider values customer relationship and go beyond the obvious to protect the interests of the customer.