What Is a Freight Forwarder?, What a freight forwarder can do

Freight Forwarders have been around for almost as long as the transportation of freight, itself. Generally, they act as agents for a client who needs to get his freight from origin to destination through a variety of transportation modes. Say you need to move a load of auto parts from Detroit, Michigan to Sydney, Australia. The cargo may need to travel by truck to a train station, then by train to a shipping port, then by ship to the origin country, where trucks and/or trains will come into play again. An airplane or two might be involved as well. It can be a burdensome process to arrange.

So you must find someone understands the logistics and legalities of moving freight, someone who can arrange to transfer your cargo between several different carriers. The Freight Forwarder you choose should have reliable contacts in trucking, rail, air or sea-going vessel companies. They should be experts at all documentation needed to push through a delivery, from initial bills of lading to insurance or custom’s declarations. They should be able to handle any size or weight of freight and they should know the most efficient routes to get cargo to its destination most efficiently. And they should be able to track that cargo all along the way—that means state of the art technology and equipment that can provide customers with up-to-the-minute status of shipments.

Some Freight Forwarders also act as carriers, themselves, actually taking part in some of the physical transportation. They may be the initial trucking company or they may own the ship that travels from one continent to another. Whatever their physical involvement may be, they work for you and therefore must keep your needs uppermost in their minds. So from price to responsibility, choose a Freight Forwarder that meets your needs.