Freight Forwarding -Logistics Don’t Always Count
In the world of freight forwarding, no two jobs are the same. The average working day of any haulage company always involves an unknown quantity – traffic. And people, if you think about it. No matter how well we package goods for transport, no matter the deadlines we claim, no matter the type of products or length of journey, the minute a truck leaves the warehouse then the journey from A to B ends up in the lap of the Gods.
We recently had a large consignment of gym equipment come through. Bowflex are a well know brand name in the keep-fit industry and we’ve worked with them before. Due to the fact that they run affiliate programs (you’ll see many a home page like this one – and we’re the guys that deliver post-sale), they have outlets and affiliates dotted around the country. That means that companies like ours either ‘pass the parcel’ along (forward to the next warehouse facility) or deliver to destination point.
We got the consignment ready for shipping, the shipping got underway, then there was sudden downpour. The kind that drops about a months worth of rain in a few short hours. Long stretches of the highway were flooded and getting the cargo from point to point was touch and go, but we still made it through. Our drivers are tough, they’re resilient, and, as we like to think of them, they’re kings of the road.
Warehouse management and packaging are easy enough, but when our drivers hit the road, a ton of things can happen. That’s why companies such as ours claim to be better than the rest because in spite of how many variables there are once you’re out on the open road, we always deliver, no question. We’ve had drivers turned around due to landslides, bad weather, accidents, and they’ve still gotten through. Once we had a driver holed up on a stretch of highway because another truck had lost its load – several dozen livestock!
The next time you take delivery of something, or drive to a store and pick up a new TV, think about the guys that did the hauling. You may not realize it but your new 40 inch plasma tv may have already seen a whole lotta sights before you got it home.
Moving – Using A Moving Company
One of the fastest growing shipping markets is the home removals field. Due to the amount of house repossessions and foreclosures currently doing the rounds, packing up and shipping out from one home to another is big business … if you’re the one providing the service.
From packaging materials and wrappings to haulage and delivery, moving house is a big deal. It’s virtually impossible to do on on your own and any one with a few spare dollars is well advised to engage a reputable home removal company into the mix.
As with any form of shipping, moving around personal possessions isn’t an easy do-it-yourself kind of job. Of course packaging up the smaller items – plate-wear, soft furnishings and so on – is fairly straight forward. It’s the larger items that need professional attention.
Unfortunately, in order gain the ‘professional attention’, you’re going to need to locate a good moving company. There are hundreds out there, and an in-depth search on wwwwgooglecom will help you pin down the right one for you and your move.
I remember the last time we relocated (across state) and what would have happened had we not employed a company to haul our furniture and appliances. Basically we wouldn’t have got any of the bedroom furniture up the spiral stair-case. When we bought the house we didn’t think (too much) about that little feature.
A truly professional moving service will include all of the following:
- packaging – both packing and unpacking
- be insured against accidents and/or loss
- trained staff – lifting and moving furniture and appliances both safely and correctly is a skill
- suitable vehicles – they should be large, clean and capable of safely containing your possessions
- a team that work with you throughout your move
All in all you’re paying for more than the safe transportation of the contents of your home – you’re also paying for peace of mind. The moving company will take care of the logistics, leaving you to get on with deciding what goes where once everything arrives.
In the event that you’re considering whether or not you should use a professional moving company I would always say the following: yes! You wouldn’t set to and try and tackle a bathroom refit, so why try and do the same when it comes to calling in a professional moving company?!
Update Your Shipping Garage Lighting To Help Logistical Errors
Do you know what the number one root cause of logistical errors is in most shipping chains? It is human errors made when a package requires routing by people if the bar code is damaged. As you know, our logistical chain is fabulous at getting packages where they belong when bar code readers are used. The error rate is so low that it is basically non-existent.
The problem comes when there is some sort of glitch in the system such as a shipping label which is damaged to the point that the reader can not function. When this happens, people need to get involved and read the label. As you can imagine, they need all the help they can get in order to read the labels properly and generate a new shipping label.
This is where your facilities manager really needs to look at lighting. There are many new garage lighting ideas coming online that can make reading much easier. We are all familiar with the old fluorescent tubes which cast an orange glow over everything. This light band makes reading very difficult.
In the place of this old tubes you can now find high energy T8 bulbs. These bulbs offer an almost exact match to natural sunlight. They are brighter and give off a much whiter light. This is especially helpful to people on swing shift and graveyard shift because they don’t feel like they are working at night any more. There bodies are fooled into thinking it is day time.
For 100% accuracy in shipping we need to deal with every little problem that can come along. Lighting is something that is easy to control and so should be on the top of your list of improvements.
Ebay Business and Shipping
When it comes to an online business, making money with Ebay is probably one of the most well-known types of businesses. The reason is because people can easily understand that this business entails. You have an item, you stick it up on Ebay where you auction it off and whoever is the highest bidder wins.
For many people, thinking about starting that type of business is easier than finding legitimate work at home jobs. Many people have sold things on Ebay but to make a business out of it, requires a little bit more than just selling old stuff around your home.
One of the things that you’ll need to keep track of is fees. There listing fees as well as sale fees. There are also shipping fees. Now with shipping, the buyer will pay for that. However, many people will turned off when they see a high shipping rate especially when it pertains to international shipping. Because of this, many sellers will put free shipping but pass the cost into the product itself.
On the other hand, since Ebay takes a percentage of your profits, many sellers will put the product price as low as possible and put the cost in the shipping. The low product price attracts more bidders and once the item is sold, the seller pays less in fees since it’s based on the product price instead of the shipping cost.
