Hartzel
New member
Wondering if anyone here has any experiences or opinions to share on shipping companies. Namely South American-North American port freighters. I'm thinking about handling my own green importation/shipping.
Shipping Company
- Thread starter Hartzel
- Start date
EspressoOutfitters
New member
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Alun_evans
New member
Shipping
In my experience you really get what you pay for....ie: there are some attractive shipping options out there, but once you select a cut price option there are many, many things that can go wrong and additional charges that you have no choice in paying.
I have only shipped once from Latin America and it was, well, a costly experience. This was one of my "cut price" shipping options and taught me a lot. The company was a resonable size operator, with offices all around the world. The quote I got was for a sole use 20'fcl- ie: only for my goods. I thought this was the best option as many shipping companies offer groupage/LCL options which means your goods need to be consolidated with other peoples until the company has accumulated enough volume to fill a container going to your destination. Somethimes this can take 6-8 months! The othe problem with LCL/groupage shipments (especially into the USA) is there are obviously more than one shipper listed on the OBL manifest. So lets say your gas fired rotary drum roaster is stuck in a container with ABC companies used machine parts. For some reason ABC has either got the wrong paperwork, or has an unpaid bill at destination. This means although you have paid up your shipmnet might get stuck at US customs and then impounded..... or you might need to pay additional demurage costs etc.
Anyway- back to my experience. Although I paid a Door-to-door price to the shipping company in Guatemala, they had failed to check the costs with the company in my country. The office here then refused to honour the original quote and I had to pay several 000$ more. It doen't help that I live in a country where legal recourse is pretty unlikely.... I think in the US you may be able to take legal action if this happens.
Anyway I suggest you stick to the bigger "one-company" logistics companies such as Maersk-logistics, Geo-logistics, Kuhne-Nagel or perhaps Panalpina. These type of companies are a little more expensive but give you relalistic prices and good follow-up service- on-line container tracking etc.
In my experience you really get what you pay for....ie: there are some attractive shipping options out there, but once you select a cut price option there are many, many things that can go wrong and additional charges that you have no choice in paying.
I have only shipped once from Latin America and it was, well, a costly experience. This was one of my "cut price" shipping options and taught me a lot. The company was a resonable size operator, with offices all around the world. The quote I got was for a sole use 20'fcl- ie: only for my goods. I thought this was the best option as many shipping companies offer groupage/LCL options which means your goods need to be consolidated with other peoples until the company has accumulated enough volume to fill a container going to your destination. Somethimes this can take 6-8 months! The othe problem with LCL/groupage shipments (especially into the USA) is there are obviously more than one shipper listed on the OBL manifest. So lets say your gas fired rotary drum roaster is stuck in a container with ABC companies used machine parts. For some reason ABC has either got the wrong paperwork, or has an unpaid bill at destination. This means although you have paid up your shipmnet might get stuck at US customs and then impounded..... or you might need to pay additional demurage costs etc.
Anyway- back to my experience. Although I paid a Door-to-door price to the shipping company in Guatemala, they had failed to check the costs with the company in my country. The office here then refused to honour the original quote and I had to pay several 000$ more. It doen't help that I live in a country where legal recourse is pretty unlikely.... I think in the US you may be able to take legal action if this happens.
Anyway I suggest you stick to the bigger "one-company" logistics companies such as Maersk-logistics, Geo-logistics, Kuhne-Nagel or perhaps Panalpina. These type of companies are a little more expensive but give you relalistic prices and good follow-up service- on-line container tracking etc.
meximco
New member
Hartzel said:
Hello, PLs advise what is the port pair that you want to ship to and from. There are lots of shipping lines who offers competitive services in this trade lane. But everyone cater business from their most convenient ports.
meximco
