Top 5 Shipping Methods for Businesses

Shipping Methods for Businesses

When it comes to buying products in bulk, it is important to consider the expenses involved in shipping them. Thankfully, there a number of options available for you.

If you want to ship your product shipments internationally, planes, trains, boats and trucks are all used to ship goods between different countries. Nonetheless, different methods of the postage suit different circumstances and scenarios.

What we need to calculate shipping cost?

The first information you will need in any case is the following:

  1. Package weight
  2. Package height, width and depth
  3. Origin and destination country

What are the options for Shipping?

Once you have that information, Now you can consider your options for shipping. If you are using an overseas manufacturer and you are new to the industry, they will usually help you through that process, although there are some factors to be considered regarding your options:

  • Air
  • Sea
  • FOB
  • Courier Shipment
  • Freight Forwarding

Air

Shipping items by air is the fastest way but also the most expensive way to move a bulk shipment. Although, there are express and economy services available there, likely the costs are run into hundreds, if there are not thousands of pounds for a reasonably-sized product range.

Express couriers usually have their own planes which run every day from the world’s manufacturing hubs, where-as economy shippers will usually contract out space on other company’s planes on a weekly or two-weekly basis. Because the plane space is limited, air freight rates are based on volumetric weight of a shipment.

Sea

Sea freight is generally suited to very large shipments which will be completely uneconomical to transport by air – often the price is 4-6 times cheaper, however obviously the time-frames are involved much longer. As an example, 6 weeks is typical for sea freight from China to the Region.

Sea freight is uneconomical for the small shipments because the space in which you rent would usually be by a palette, half container, or full container, all of which, are costly up front but very worthwhile if you have a very large amount of your products to transport. With sea freight the volumetric weight is not as important as it is via air, The meaning is, a heavier shipment will be cheaper to send by sea than the one of a comparable physical size by air.

FOB

FOB stands for “Free On Board” and it is something you should be aware of if you are dealing with overseas suppliers. Sometimes the suppliers are quote FOB shipping, however be aware, this will only get your items as far as the port in the origin country, meaning is, then you have to arrange a courier to transport them to your destination country as well as dealing with everything in between like documents fees, licence charges, insurance and customs declarations etc.

Courier Shipment 

Most of the well-known worldwide couriers like DHL, FedEx, and UPS are able to facilitate door-to-door shipping of your goods, using fast, fully-tracked and reliable service. Comparing to freight couriers are far more expensive because they have huge overheads for running their own network of planes and vans worldwide.

Most of the well-known international couriers offer door-to-door shipping for bulk shipments from one country to another, including pick up services and the time slot delivery.

Freight Forwarding

A freight forwarder is an agent who acts on behalf of the importers, exporters or the other companies to organize the safe and cost-effective transportation of goods internationally. They will collect your shipment at one end, will handle the transportation to the destination country, and then when it reaches the destination, they will arrange the package with a local domestic courier to deliver for you.

Freight Forwarding is a convenient & cost-effective way of transporting bulk items in a reasonable quick time-frame around the world.

Edited: Sourced By @Howthorninc