A brief (yet surprising) history of freight forwarding

Freight is an area that we all have an interested in, from the computer you are reading this on to much of the food you have eaten today, freight means that we have all the things around us that we need. For the past hundred or so years, we have become a truly global society. In the past humans used local goods that they made or grew themselves. As our civilisation has grown in size and complexity freight has become increasingly important. The world is diverse and no area has everything it needs. Hence freighting goods and materials around to ensure that despite regional variation you can have your breakfast and check your emails. 

Freight has been around for many thousands of years, with evidence of English and Flemish traders selling wool and other commodities to each other many years ago, for the majority of history the owner of the freight has been the one in charge of moving it. However, as the world grew there was a need for an intermediary to take charge of organising the freight, there was a need for freight forwarders.

A freight forwarder is a person or company who organizes shipments for individuals or corporations to get goods from the manufacturer or producer to a market, customer or final point of distribution. Forwarders contract with a carrier to move the goods. A forwarder does not move the goods but acts as an expert in supply chain management. A forwarder contracts with carriers to move cargo ranging from raw agricultural products to manufactured goods. 

Funnily enough though, the first international freight forwarders were not canny businessmen who saw an opportunity but rather were innkeepers in London who held and re-forwarded the personal effects of their hotel guests. The original function of these hotelier freight forwarders was to arrange for carriage by contracting with various carriers.

One of the earliest proper freight forwarders was Thomas Meadows and Company Limited of London, England. With increasingly reliable rail transport and steamships there was a sudden demand for the fledgling freight forwarding industry. Trade developed between Europe and North America, creating additional demand.  Their forwarder responsibilities included things like advice on documentation and the customs requirements in the country of destination. His correspondent agent overseas looked after his customers' goods and kept him informed about matters that would affect movement of goods.

In modern times the forwarder accepts the same responsibilities. It operates either as a domestic carrier or otherwise with a corresponding agent overseas or with his own branch-office. In a single transaction, the forwarder may be acting as a carrier (principal) or as an agent for his customer or both. 

The Lloyd's Loading List is the freight forwarding industry’s journal of record, it was first published 160 years ago as a UK export directory today it provides details of forwarders, nvoccs, shipping lines/agents who serve over 10,000 ports globally

These days there are many freight options, from sea to air, you no longer have to get in touch with a London hotelier if you want to get your shipping from one country to another.

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What is a freight company?

So what is a freight company exactly? A freight company is a company that specialises in one of the areas involved with the moving (or ‘forwarding’) of freight, or cargo, from one place to another. These companies are divided into several variant sections. There are international freight forwarders who ship goods internationally from country to country and domestic freight forwarders who ship goods within a single country.

There are a number of different methods of shipping goods; either by air, road, sea, or rail. Obviously there are different costs and factors involved with all of these means of transportation and it is up to the freight company to inform the customer. Some companies offer multi-modal solutions, which means that they offer more than one service, in many cases air and sea and in other cases air, sea, and road. The most common multi-modal way of shipping is referred to as inter-modal meaning truck pickup to rail to truck delivery. The main reason for multi-modal shipping is that generally that some forms of transport, namely shipping, rail and air, are unable to do exact pickup and delivery while other means of transport, such as road, is unable to cross the distances that shipping, rail and air can. Multi-modality is a vital component of modern freight. Another influence is cost, often it is cheaper to use multi-modal means of transport. A third factor is the nature of the item being shipped. If it is a time critical item then using a faster means of shipping, such as air, over other slower but cheaper means, such as sea, are preferable. 

In other words, the shipping method is by evaluating three factors: time, cost, and product characteristics. While shipping by sea could take longer than shipping by air, the latter is generally more expensive. Shipping by rail could also be complemented by piggybacking the freight onto a truck so it can be delivered to the receiver.

There are literally thousands of different freight companies in business worldwide, many of which are members of certain organisations. Such organisations include the IATA (International Air Transport Association), TIA (Transportation Intermediaries Association) the BIFA (British International Freight Association), or the FTA (Freight Transport Association) and various or other regional organisations. It pays to choose a freight company that belongs to one or all of these organisations as this is the best way of ensuring that they will deliver a certain standard or service. 

If you want to get the best results from your freighting experience then you need to find a reputable company and you need to consider the modality of your shipping. Obviously if your item needs to be somewhere fast then you will need to consider air freight as it is the quickest over long distances but if you are more concerned about cost then you are more likely to choose a cheaper alternative such as sea freight.

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eCommerce Best Practices

Buying and Selling online is where it’s at. The world of eCommerce - or as the Temando team call it, the world of ‘dot com’ - gives you the ability to reach a broad range of potential customers. The question is: how do you make these people who browse the internet your customer, and how do you keep them?

Below are a few best practices for you to keep in mind when creating your dot com space.

1.   Shipping - give options and be upfront

Recently, after searching for an outdoor setting online and settling on one I liked, I was shocked to get to the checkout and be slogged with a $200+ shipping cost. This was almost the cost of the product itself. It is important to be upfront with your shipping costs. Regardless of whether your store offers flat rate or dynamic shipping cost (i.e. shipping cost is dependent on customer’s postcode), cost needs to be clearly communicated with the user. Adding a shipping calculator at a product level assists in this transparency.

Communicating shipping costs is key, but so is providing the customer with options. Some customers may want to pay for a premium service to receive their goods earlier whilst other may be happy with a slower, ‘general road’ service. Temando allows the comparison of various freight services whether it be same day, overnight or general road.

Anaconda's checkout with shipping calculator for the customer to calculate costs prior to checkout.

2.   Keep it Simple, Stupid

Like a bricks and mortar store, your website needs to be well laid out and aesthetically appealing to drive customers to the check out. Cluttered product pages with too much going on can be distracting and lead to unconverted sales. Use the pages to highlight the product and its features, but don’t get too crazy. Animations and flashing images can often distract from the product. And not all devices show flash! Be precise with product descriptions. Visually, clean crisp lines are ideal. 

Customers are going to be deterred from buying if the process is complicated. Ensure you map this process prior to development.

This motto is across the board and not industry selective, so don’t forget to keep it simple, stupid.

3.   Provide Quality Images

Selling items intangibly can be a difficult task if quality images are not provided. The way you present your items can get a visitor across the line and convert them to a buyer. Having pictures play a major role means that you should invest in the images you have displayed on your site. Keeping the images consistent and well-presented will encourage sales.

When it comes to online shopping, pictures play a major role.

Feather and Buzz, homewares website- is a great example of good quality images. 

4.   Username OR Email Address?

Allowing your users to use your website with an email address rather than a username is preferable. Usernames can be difficult to remember, and can be a pet peeve of the buyer. When they are buying a product, allow users to create their profile with an email address.

5.   Visible Contact Information

Despite online shopping being widely accepted as a retail environment, there are still some hesitations of customers on the legitimacy of websites. Displaying contact details clearly helps to reinforce confidence in the consumer to purchase from your website. This does not necessarily mean providing your contact number but having a clear contact page - whether that is via phone or email. Should a customer have questions or issues they can easily and confidently contact you.

Bing Lee have their contact details clearly visible in the header, as well as live chat.

6.   Editable Cart Page

Give the customer the ability to add and remove items from the cart page. From personal experience, it can be a frustrating and sometimes a negative experience when you are required to go back or refresh the page when you simply want to edit the contents of the cart.

Ksubi allows you to remove or update the quantities of the products in your shopping cart.

 7.   Search Field:

Whilst not a key component of a website, giving users the option of a search field can be viewed as beneficial. Some users come directly to your site in search of a particular product. Rather than hunting your website, this option allows them to search for the product directly. This search function should be inserted in the header of the page (in most cases on the right hand side of the header).

Harvey Norman has a clearly visibly search bar for customers to search the product database.

8.   If you like this, you’ll love that

A great addition to a website is ‘Recommended Item’ feature, if executed correctly. A bad feature for a website is a ‘recommended item’ feature that displays irrelevant products. Linking purchased products and providing similar ones to tempt the consumer further is another way of engaging with your consumer.

The Iconic make use of the recommended item feature- love wedges!

9.   Avoid Hidden Charges

Hidden charges can leave your consumer with a negative view of your eCommerce site. If these charges are added at the checkout they are generally the last part of the interaction with your site. Providing clarity with product and payment methods upfront will avoid this negative connotation. There should be no hidden charges - it’s easier to retain a customer than gain a new one.

10. Payment Options

Not everyone feels comfortable paying by credit card, so ensure your online store has more than one method of payment. Research the payment options available in your sector and area (Australia, US, Europe).  Remove any barriers to purchase by giving your customers payment options.

Supercheap Auto offer Credit Card & PayPal as payment methods.

11. Simple and Easy Checkout

Temando’s data shows that a one-page checkout process increases conversions.  Only ask for the important and necessary information – asking for irrelevant information will frustrate the customer and can lead to shopping cart abandonment.

Ensure that previously entered data is automatically entered when the customer has logged in (e.g. shipping address).

Your one-page checkout should include shipping address, delivery options and payment gateway.

Tony Bianco has a sleek and clear checkout.

12. Responsive Pages

The booming uptake of handheld devices such as tablets and smart phones makes online shopping much more easily accessible. No longer do people just browse the internet from their desktop, it’s often done from their smart device whilst on the bus or watching TV. Make sure your website is responsive to the varying devices. Keep in mind that these devices are touch screen so links and buttons should be designed to accommodate this. Hot tip from around the traps - make sure you can still access the normal website from the mobile version!

Responsive websites are becoming the norm and the necessary.

These points are only skimming the surface of the best practices for your online store. The online environment is a quickly adapting one. eCommerce site owners should continue to keep their fingers on the pulse and up to date. Give us your feedback on what has worked for your site - or maybe what didn’t work so well!

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eCommerce Holiday Shopping Statistics & Trends: Infographic

I can't believe it's almost Christmas again! Here's some interesting data out of the US on the trends and expectations for 2012's Xmas period. Enjoy!

 
 
Infographic by- Invesp

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Cart Update: Magento 2.0

Magento is a shopping cart platform, recently purchased by eBay. It is hugely popular among small, medium and enterprise level customers.  It’s often ranked within the top 5 eCommerce platforms and currently serves over 110,000 merchants.

The Temando Magento 2.0 Plugin is now available and offers some great new features along with the full functionality of the Temando shipping calculator:

Multi Origin

Set up multiple locations (e.g. warehouses, stores) and create a rule to ship products to a customer from the location closest to them.  Beneficial for those businesses with multiple stores and warehouses.

Multi Packaging

Configure up to 5 packages per product. For example, a dining table set might have a box for the table, plus one for each chair, yet is sold as a set.

Rule Engine

The new rule engine lets you take advantage of flat rate and dynamic pricing. Want to offer free shipping for those customers that spend over a certain amount? Perhaps free shipping for all local deliveries? The rule engine allows you to create rules based on product weights, shopping cart price totals and postcode. A welcomed feature that we are sure Magento users will love.  

Linking your Magento & Temando

If you are selling on your own website and on eBay, you can now import all your orders into Temando to process them all in the one place. Easy!

Temando loves Magento and we hope you do too, we are currently offering FREE installation of the Temando module in Magento – limited time only! Contact us for further details.

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