What is the Process?

Put simply, you contact a freight forwarding specialist and they will do the rest. They will need to know the measurements and weight of your shipment and will want a copy of your commercial invoice so that they can create the documents they are responsible for, especially their House BoL (Bill of Lading). This is the document that asserts their rights and responsibilities for the goods, which in a mixed shipment is particularly important. The shipper will be amalgamating all the individual House BoLs into his Ocean BoL for the whole container. (Brazil and some African countries require an original BoL and you will have to pay for it to be couriered there).

They will discover which shippers are working on your potential route, bearing in mind that transhipment may be required for less common destinations: and they will get a price for you. They may also carry out one of a range of added-value services including collection delivery to the final destination from the arrival port.

Be aware that a shipping quotation may include origin charges (such as consolidation fee, fuel and currency adjustment factors and Ocean BoL fee): but it will not contain the many potential destination charges.