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Monday 23 August 2010

Who you gonna call?

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I have noticed a significant shift in the market recently with many large, high volume shippers who have previously had direct deals with shipping lines gravitating back toward freight forwarders.

Shipping lines have been fighting to stay profitable and as a result are frequently changing ships, retrenching staff, dropping port calls or still have some fleet laid up resulting in lack of capacity and short shipments. The reality is that many shipping lines service levels have been faltering. I think I can say without exception every client is fed up with dealing with so called "Customer Service" centres on 1800 numbers.

So who you gonna call? Freight forwarders!

Shrewd shippers are using forwarders to help overcome these things. The forwarders are generally better positioned and resourced in meeting the needs of shippers right now and will offer a broader range of options rather than just one carrier. The range of services is usually broader too and in the volatile freight market we have had for quite a while, the forwarders are more attuned to where the deals are.

Best of all...you don't sit on hold in a phone queue waiting for ages to talk to someone and then being told "Go to www." to do that!

All for now,

Brad Skelton

The Shipping Bloke.

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