What is Freight Forwarding?

Freight forwarder is an organization that facilitate the shipping of good, but do not carry out the shipping themselves. Freight forwarding is the movement of commodities on behalf of the shippers across international borders.

They use their contacts with carriers and partners across different modes like air, sea and road to negotiate the best possible price, route and timeline for a particular shipping gig. The complex part of the operation is documentation, settling VAT, paying duty taxes.

They make use of transport management systems to keep track of all shipments and provide tracking features to their shippers. And help them generate all the documentation needed for various legal reasons.

Here are some services that a typical freight forwarder provides

• Keep the information flow between all the various carriers and transporters for an efficient shipping

• Supply chain optimization: Plan the exact process to optimize for various factors according to the need of the customer.

• Cargo insurance: Provide insurance and security on the shipment from an end-to-end perspective.

• Customs advice, Customs Brokerage: Licensed brokers can submit extensive documentation to complete the import/export process.

Freight forwarders are the glue between all the different modes of transport and the various routes, timelines and time zones from a business' perspective.