subject: Why Your Business Needs A Freight Forwarder [print this page] If your company has the need to ship a large parcel overland to a different continent, either as a one off or on a regular basis. Then the chances are you will need to use the services of a freight forwarding company. It maybe that your current parcel company can offer this service, either directly or indirectly.
You may not initially think, or even realise, that you need the services of a freight forwarding company, but if you area sending a parcel delivery through multiple countries then there is a high chance that you do need to use one.
The reason for this is that unless you are prepared to research all of the relevant paperwork you will need for each country, as well as ensuring that your goods are even legal to ship through every country they will need to go through on their way to their final destination, then you are best to use the services of someone who is familiar with doing this.
In addition if you are planning on doing this yourself you would also need to find out all customs and taxes due on the goods and arrange payment for them to avoid your parcel getting stuck in transit.
On top of this it is highly likely that your goods may need to be transported by more than one form of carrier or transport, and arranging the shipment timetable for these is also best left to an expert, as you need someone who knows how the customs procedures in each country work, as well as how long the goods in your parcels will take to clear customs in each country.
If not the best planned timetable in the World can be ruined by your parcel being held up in customs due to paperwork errors or omissions, or the taxes or customs duties not having been paid on time.
You also have to bear in mind that what is legal to ship in your country may not be in another, and a freight forwarder will be aware of these matters and may arrange for your parcel to be shipped via an alternate route to avoid any customs problems.
So as you can see from the above it could be all too easy to ship what appears to be a simple parcel to a customer, only to find it gets stuck in transit very easily due to problems with any of the above factors.
