The world of freight is a mysterious one to many people but if you have ever imported or exported anything of any size you will be familiar with its complexities and idiosyncrasies.
Most businesses will have found themselves enlisting the services of a Freight Forwarder, the travel agents of international shipping, but unlike their holiday counterparts Freight Forwarders have not changed very much in the last hundred years.
The average customer of a Freight Forwarder will be accustomed to the fact that completing a transaction can be a slow and time-consuming process, involving requesting quotes by email or phone and waiting – often more than a day – to get a response. Then, when they have decided to book a shipment, it requires dozens of emails and phone calls to complete the delivery satisfactorily.
While traditional manufacturers or importers have come to accept this is the nature of the beast that is international shipping for the growing number of e-commerce driven businesses it presents serious problems.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the problems:
Giving customers accurate delivery costs at checkout
E-commerce customers have come to expect the smooth shipping experience delivered by the likes of Amazon. For businesses who are shipping small packages the courier companies like DHL and FedEx provide a good solution and now with startups like Shippo it’s getting ever easier to integrate shipping into your e-commerce site and provide your customers with accurate shipping quotes at the checkout.
Unfortunately if you sell something that is a bit larger you have none of these integrated options.
Automating order management
There are now an increasing number of options for integrating courier services into e-commerce sites and order management systems but there are practically no options when it comes to larger items that need to be moved as freight.
Supply chain visibility
Even for e-commerce retailers who sell items small enough to be delivered by courier their supply chain can be a big headache – no retailer wants to hold more stock the necessary. So having a fast, reliable and cost-effective supply chain is crucial.
When an item is out of stock e-commerce retailers need to be able to tell customers on their website when they will be able to deliver it to them. This is only possible if they have accurate lifetime visibility of their supply chain of which shipping is a central part. Unfortunately the slow and manual nature of the classic freight service can leave them not knowing where the stock is, if it’s been delayed and when it’s likely to reach their warehouse.
Also for e-commerce businesses that have invested heavily in automating their order management processes the manual nature of the freight forwarding service means they require their own staff to be spending time chasing shipment statuses on the phone and manually updating their own systems.
Conclusion
Freight Forwarders offer a competitive and vital service to businesses needing to ship large items and are often more competitive than courier companies even for large packages but their service was designed for the pre internet age and doesn’t meet the demands of today’s e-commerce businesses.
The shameless plug
Here at Freight Filter we are working hard to provide e-commerce businesses with a high tech alternative to traditional freight forwarders by offering automated pricing, booking and tracking through an API and online dashboard. If you are interested in this we would love to get your feedback please leave a comment below or email hello@freightfilter.com
