Freight forwarding in Europe, your stock moved and managed door to door

Hvad er freight forwarding?

Freight forwarding is the service of arranging and managing the movement of goods on behalf of a shipper, coordinating the carriers, routes, documents and customs needed to get a consignment from origin to destination as a single, managed job. A freight forwarder is not usually the carrier itself: rather than owning the ships, planes or trucks, it acts as the organiser and intermediary that books space with the right carriers, selects the mode and route, prepares the shipping documentation, arranges export and import customs clearance, and manages the shipment through each leg, handling exceptions when a movement slips. For an ecommerce brand bringing stock into Europe, a forwarder is often the difference between inbound freight that arrives on plan and freight that stalls because a document was missing, a code was wrong or a leg was never booked. Forwarding overlaps with, but is broader than, freight consolidation: consolidation is one technique a forwarder may use, combining part-loads into fuller ones, whereas forwarding is the whole coordination of the journey regardless of load size. It is also distinct from a customs broker, whose role is specifically the clearance step, and from the fulfilment centre, which receives and handles the goods once they land. A good forwarder is chosen on the strength of its network on the specific lanes a brand uses, the modes it can offer, its customs capability, and its reliability when a shipment does not go to plan, rather than on headline rate alone.

Også kaldet: freight forwarder, forwarding agent, international freight management