Friday, May 17, 2013

An Ocean Cargo Shipping Primer

By Elnora McCullough


There are many things that simply do not fit in a box, or an airplane for that matter. When an item needs to get from your country to another you may need to rely on ocean cargo shipping. While this method has been around for centuries, many companies are turning back to sea transport to cut costs. Many companies also turn to specialty shippers since the technology age has allowed for companies to specialize in logistics.

Most shipping is performed via containers. There are several sizes, basically small, medium and large. This is by far the most popular method of package movement, but it spawns specific issues. If you have few items, not enough to fill a container that can be an issue. Some will ship partial containers, or even combine into one container for you. This may be slower as they wait for additional items to fill out a container.

Car transport is slightly different. There are specialty car ferries, but those are sometimes rare, and do not move throughout the world. Sometimes containerizing rare or exotic cars is the way to go. Always buy insurance for the goods though.

There are containers that are the size of a bedroom, they double in size from there, and sometimes there are supersize containers depending on the company. The middle size is by far the most popular and seen the most. The shorty containers are gaining in popularity for movement of equipment, or smaller shipments.

Generally transit times are around 20 days port to port. How fast your container enters port and exits depends on many things such as loading, customs and other factors. Overall, look at an average of 30 days door to door. Some companies need your container delivered to port, others offer full service and will truck the container wherever it needs to go.

There is a bit of terminology that needs to be explained. LCL or less than container load denotes when you cannot fill a container full. FCL denotes a full container. With most companies, LCL is the most expensive, FCL being lower in price. If your container is very heavy, that can incur other charges.

There is also specialty services such as hazardous or perishable. Many times produce, or other foods are using a perishable service, and with that a refrigerated container is used. Other services can include door to door tracking, security, and distribution solutions. The last contention is customs. Some companies can deal with customs for you, or you may need a customs broker to finish off and get your container to the destination.

Worldwide ocean cargo shipping is a well developed industry that can do wonders for your business, or just get a large package to another continent. Ask tons of questions so that you can have peace of mind. The internet can also help answer questions as well as assure you the safety of working with any given company in every country around the world.




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