Dynamic Export

Consistency helps with negotiations. If you have loads leaving the country on a regular basis, you are more likely to secure a better rate than an exporter who sends freight on an ad hoc basis.
Also ensure that your freight handler has strong relationships with carriers both in Australia and overseas. This is where there is an advantage to using a freight forwarder or integrator over internal staff. “There’s a direct benefit to the client when forwarders have strong relationships. The bigger forwarders in particular have strategic relationships with multiple shipping lines and this means we can guarantee space and leverage those relationships to give exporters a diversity of service and competitive rates by leveraging our total volume,” he explains.At the moment, the global situation has made the freight environment market-driven. “It’s a very competitive environment and all costs are negotiable,” Laflin remarks. As a result, your handler should monitor the market and ensure you receive up-to-date information. “Freight forwarders should assist exporters to understand market changes. We don’t want them to hear about a cheaper rate from someone else and have them think we are blatantly profiteering from them. If you’re in a relationship, the forwarder should tell you about those savings or increases straight away,” he says.

However, exporters should be aware that although a lot of handlers are prepared to undercut each other on price, there is a time value to spending too much effort shopping around, so it’s imperative they take into account any time investment they have already made with existing handlers.

Gluer lists a number of other global factors that come into play when putting a price on freight movement, including foreign exchange, carriers that have reduced their cargo space or frequency of routes, the fluctuating price of fuel and the increasing cost of security required for shipments.

“This year is different for the Australian marketplace than previous years,” adds Laflin. “It’s hard to lock in a rate for the next six months like a lot of exporters used to, they need to continually monitor the rates because they are constantly changing due to various factors. I believe it will settle down in the second half of the year and then they can decide whether they want to lock in a rate for a fixed period of time.”

Competitive freight insurance

General manager of TNT’s International division Ross Gluer says that although a lot of freight handlers offer insurance with their service you might be better off looking elsewhere: “My advice is always to talk to a reputable brokerage and get annual coverage based on estimates of what you’re going to send and it will be cheaper than taking insurance from a forwarder or an integrator who has it as an added value product. We sell freight, not insurance.”

In or forward?

The difference between a freight integrator and a freight forwarder is that an integrator is a transport service provider who arranges full load, door-to-door transportation, while a forwarder is a third party service provider. Integrators usually have assets such as warehouses and carriers like cargo planes or ships; forwarders do not have assets but arrange space for shipments with carriers.

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