How to send freight all over the world

Airfreight

Airfreight is a fast moving industry and it's important to keep yourselves on your toes! In seafreight you have time to reflect but with flights moving so quickly you have to be ahead of the game.

Once you have a commercial invoice, this needs to be used for the air way bill and the customs clearance. It is less important for the air way bill to be correct as it doesn't hold quite the same weight as the seafreight bill of lading. That notwithstanding, you should ensure that things like the weight etc... are accurate to begin with.

Some other important aspects are ensuring that the dims are suitable for passenger flights as it is more expensive to send things on larger aircraft.

Also, security is extremely important! Some goods just cannot be flown so do check before making any commitments!

If your cargo is particularly dense then this may require secondary security screening which is more expensive.

Roadfreight

In terms of roadfreight, you may go with a full trailer load of cargo or a part load known as groupage.

You should check if the dims of the cargo do fit the trailer so you don't have problems when the driver arrives!

Groupage often transships, which means that it is taken off the vehicle at a depot and loaded onto other vehicles. This means that the infrastructure can allow freight to be delivered far more economically. It would be quite rare for all the cargo collected locally in the country of origin to be delivered to similar places. They would often be different countries so that's why transshipment happens.

Trailer types are important and dependent on what type of cargo you have. You may need an open top trailer such as a flat bed or euroliner if the cargo has to load through the roof. There are lots of different variables!

Seafreight

The process of seafreight is a slightly lengthy process but suits the way shipping by sea works.

Things you need to think about would be what kind of container you need: 20', 40' or 40' high cube containers.

Also, it's possible to ship a part container. This is known as LCL. A full container is known as FCL.

Please check that the dimensions of your cargo will fit in a container!

Once you know what the cargo would be, you need to generate the invoice which is what you would be using to send to your customer. This needs to be used for the bill of lading and customs clearance so it's important to pass these across as soon as possible.

You would need to check the bill of lading for mistakes before it is issued by the shipping line.

The bill of lading cannot be generated until the ship has sailed. Once this is done, this is the proof of who owns the rights to the cargo so if you are selling this cargo then it would be normal to only send them the bill of lading once you have been paid!

Beginners guide to exporting

One of the most daunting aspects of transport is taking the step from selling cargo domestically to exporting on an international level.

There are different types of freight and I won't go into too much detail of each topic to try and keep things from becoming too complicated. It is a beginners guide of course!

The main types of exporting would be: Seafreight, Airfreight and Roadfreight.

Roadfreight would be most appropriate for exporting cargo over short distances. For example, from the UK to Europe. It may only involve a pallet or two or it may be a huge piece of kit that would be larger than could fit on a normal trailer. This would be an abnormal load.

Airfreight is suitable for smaller pieces of cargo that are more urgent.

Seafreight is the most economical way of sending cargo over long distances.

Even at the negotiation stage, you need to know about Incoterms as this can have a knock on effect on things. It may be ex-works and you have nothing to do. It could be DDP and you would be responsible for the lot. It may be somewhere in between like FOB or CFR.

If you are exporting outside of free trade (for example outside of the EU) then you would need to consider customs clearance and the documentation.

Examples of docs may be Bills of lading for Seafreight and Air Way Bills for Airfreight. You would be responsible for ensuring the information is correct as failing to do so may cause problems when trying to get the cargo at the country where you would be delivering it to.

Beginners guide to sending freight all over the world!