subject: Freight Forwarding Is The New Frontier For Express Delivery Companies [print this page] Growing realisation of the potential of the internet, and that their customers appreciate the more personal service they get when dealing with them, have led several small express delivery operators to start up their own freight forwarding divisions.
It marks a shift by these companies away from the simple job of carrying out A-to-B deliveries, and towards becoming involved in controlling and putting in place every link in the supply chain. This brings the obvious benefits of controlling costs, and of being able to tailor services to individual customers, rather than rely on the off the peg facilities offered by the major worldwide shipping companies.
While some businesses may get the services they are looking for by shopping around among the major freight forwarding companies, breaking up the delivery chain in this way does not necessarily result in the best deal being obtained or in a company receiving the superior, more personal service which it would get from dealing with a single supplier.
So instead, the new breed of freight forwarder is typically a company which already has a well-established and strong working relationship with its major worldwide shipping partners, such as DHL or Fed-Ex. This means that it is well placed to offer its services as an intermediary between the customer and the shipping company, making the choice for the customer easier, and providing a single point of contact for arranging every aspect of the express delivery process.
For customers, anything which simplifies the job of sea freight forwarding has to be welcomed, and the chance to link up with a smaller challenger to the likes of DHL and Fed-Ex is likely to appeal to many of the smaller businesses who feel they arent being well served by the worldwide shipping giants.
Experts at freight industry umbrella group the Freight Transport Association say that haulage companies moving into freight forwarding can be a logical step, as many of the principles involved in shipping goods by one mode of transport apply equally to facilitating the use of another.
This mirrors the work of companies which have set up in the parcel delivery sector. They have set themselves up as intermediaries between both domestic and business customers, and work as a facilitator, taking the spare capacity available in the massive transport fleets of the worldwide delivery companies, and selling it on to their customers.
