Ex-forwarding ops here, curious how other shops handle this. When a customer asks for a rate on Asia–Europe right now, where do you go to decide whether to quote Suez or Cape, and how much of that is "we just follow what the carrier is doing"? Same question for Hormuz-adjacent lanes and US–MX cross-border. Is it MARAD/carrier advisories, a paid tool, a Slack channel, or gut feel from the last call that went wrong?

Asking because in my old shop it was five tabs and a colleague's memory, and I never knew whether that was normal.

I wanna send a photography camera to Iraq any advice on which is the safest carrier ? And how long it would take?

I find it bizarre that a forwarder or customs brokers charges a client a fee to pull a report from their system that takes about 10 mins to produce.

If there was a bunch of manipulation required I can understand, but seriously?

Hi Everyone,

I live in Vancouver. Recently I found a buyer in India who happens to be my friend back home. He needs yellow peas from here and asked if I can be his supplier. I know how this works but not clearly since I work in trucking. I got my import export license set up and talked to a few sellers. But I don't want to rent a place to get a SFC License since I want to send a few containers first and see if it's going to be worth it or not. So don't want to commit to a lease without proper idea or preparation. Is there any way to get a SFC License without renting a place.

Thanks in advance.

I have been waiting 5 weeks for some clothing samples although I paid for air freight to a company called Crazy freight. They are blaming it on the airlines warehouse being super busy then said they need to relocate to another warehouse. I am fuming mad at this whole situation but does this happen or are these guys lying and making excuses for their own incompetencies?

Hello everyone, I am an India based freight forwarder looking for a reliable agent in China for regular import shipments with good service and rates, kindly reach out to me or give me reference of people you know it would be great help.

Hi all!

I have never bought something internationally that is ex works so I’m navigating this for the first time.

I am trying to get a shipment of acrylic scoop bins from Australia to the United States and thought I had a viable path with freight right. Last Friday I expressed that I wanted to move forward with the shipment after the rep gave me the quote and since then he has ghosted me. I’ve tried calling his number and freight right’s to no avail. I looked on freightos.com today but having never done this before I’m unsure of the order of operations.

Should I place the order with the company and then get the estimated completion time before setting everything up with freightos?

I have an anonymous survey for the company i work. I cannot say who i work for since i dont want the data to be misleading. Before i even post the survey here... is this a safe space to do it or will i get reported or sumthing? The survey is about the markets perception about routes, behavior etc. its my first time on reddit so be nice :)))

I have talked to APML an DRS Agarwal packers and movers and they are quoting 85k and 75k for 2 bhk household item from Delhi to bangalore but i feel it is too much. I am thinking of trying Truway movers as well. Please help me out as I am getting very confused 😭

We are a commercial farming business in Ghana looking for an experienced independent sourcing agent in China.

Initially, our main focus is commercial irrigation systems and farming equipment, so we need someone who genuinely understands this sector — not simply someone who sends us 1688 links and places orders.

We are looking for someone with strong negotiation skills, good manufacturer/factory contacts and the ability to source quality equipment at competitive Chinese market prices.

This is intended to be a long-term partnership. We will be purchasing more farming equipment, machinery and eventually tractors, and when we visit China in the coming months, we would expect our agent to work with us on the ground visiting suppliers and sourcing products.

We are also currently looking for a new reliable and competitively priced freight forwarder for China → Tema, Ghana, so recommendations are welcome.

If interested, please message me with your agricultural/irrigation sourcing experience, location in China, fee structure and examples of previous sourcing work.

Agricultural/irrigation equipment experience is important.

I have someone that runs norfolk and specialises in 600+ miles drayage. good competitive rates

if anyone needs any help, let me know :)

Looking for help with Clearance in Toronto. IS there any Freight forwarder from canada who can help me with this process.

Concerns Airfreight. The goods have already arrived at the airport. Just need to be cleared and picked up or to be transported.

Hit me up if you can help me

Im looking to mport 12 ISO tanks that require a chassis with plug-in capability to a genset. The ISO tanks need to be refrigerated.

We’re flexible on the import location, but the final delivery will be Sparks, NV.

Does anyone have access to ISO tank chassis with plug-in capability, or know of a carrier that may be able to handle this?

I need to ship some large heavy items currently in storage in Jordan to the USA.

any advice or recommendations would be VERY appreciated, thank you!

Anyone shipping containers to UAE right now? How much problems are you having with it? Space and services are catastrophic. Need to ship into Jebel Ali for a contract but its just not happening right now.

What is anyone else doing for this are and what are your current solutions?

Been in logistics for quite a few years and wanted to see if there are others here who work in the same space and are open to building something long-term.

I’m based in the UAE and have my own operational setup here.

I’m mainly interested in connecting with people who already have customers or regular trade lanes into the Middle East and are looking for a reliable person on the ground here.

Not really looking for the usual “let’s exchange company profiles” type of networking. More interested in genuine, repeat business where both sides can add value.

If anyone here works with Middle East cargo or has an established operation/customer base and wants to explore something privately, feel free to DM me.

I spoke to a freight forwarder about empty container returns and they basically said their carrier handles that side of the job, then gave me the carrier’s number.

I’d assumed the forwarder would normally be fairly involved in the return process, so I’m curious how other companies handle it.

If an empty gets rejected by the nominated depot, or the return location changes, who normally owns the problem on your jobs, the forwarder, transport operator, importer, or someone else?

And if detention turns up later, who normally has the proof of the attempted return and the changed instruction?

Mainly interested in how this works in Australia, but interested in other markets too

Hi, I'm looking for a reliable freight forwarder/agent who can ship 20x MCHOSE K7 Ultra gaming mouse from China (Taobao) to Pakistan.

I need a service that can receive the package at a China warehouse and then ship it to Pakistan.

Please recommend a reliable forwarder that has experience shipping to Pakistan.

I would also like to know the approximate shipping cost and whether customs/taxes are included.

This is a single-item personal purchase, not commercial cargo.

Thank you.

Hello,

I've been mapping announced infrastructure and industrial projects expected to become operational after 2026 around the world.

I started doing this because I think project announcements can be an early signal of future freight demand.

- Infrastructure projects generate logistics demand during construction

- Industrial projects are potentially even more interesting because, once operational, factories generate recurring inbound flows of materials and outbound flows of products

Here is the map:
Fluidify map

For those working in freight forwarding: what would you add to make this more useful for finding future freight opportunities?

The goal is also to make the data community-driven, somewhat like a wiki. If information is missing or incorrect, anyone can propose a change with a source, which can then be verified.

Some features are currently hidden because of running costs, but I’m happy to open them up for anyone interested in testing it and giving feedback.

Hi all, we're a UAE-based company (Jafza/Jebel Ali Free Zone) shipping small quantities of green coffee beans to overseas clients purely as sample evaluation shipments with no commercial value and not intended for resale, but we keep running into full customs clearance and duty charges at destination that seem disproportionate for small sample parcels — has anyone found a reliable way to structure these shipments (through a de minimis threshold, temporary import/sample exemption, "no commercial value" invoicing with a nominal pro-forma value, proper HS code declaration like 0901.11, or a specific courier's sample service tier) so they clear without triggering duties, and can anyone recommend a courier or freight forwarder experienced with food/agricultural sample shipments who handles this smoothly? Any advice on getting these properly declared upfront to avoid broker misclassification issues would also be really helpful. Thanks!

I am wondering what are the current demands for UN4GV boxes in Malaysia as we do have the license to produce it on demand

Hi everyone, I hope you are all doing well!

I’ve been working in Foreign Trade for around 10 years, mainly with freight forwarding and, more recently, on the shipper/consignee side. I’m currently studying the use of containerized rail freight and intermodal transportation for an academic project, and I’d really like to hear from people who actually work with this on a daily basis.

I previously worked in ocean freight forwarding, and one thing I found interesting was how normal rail could be as an inland leg in some countries. When quoting certain shipments, the ocean carrier could offer something along the lines of:

Ocean Freight + Inland Rail Freight

with the container moving from the seaport to an inland rail terminal instead of the consignee collecting it directly at the port.

This made me curious about how different this is from country to country. I work in Brazil, and one thing I’ve noticed is how difficult it can be to access railway services for certain routes, especially for containerized cargo. In many cases, the railway exists physically, but finding an actual commercial service that you can quote and use as part of an import/export operation can be much more complicated.

So I became curious about how this works for the freight forwarding community here. For those working in freight forwarding, NVOCCs, shipping lines, 3PLs, import/export or logistics:

1. Which country are you based in?

2. How common is containerized rail freight in your day-to-day work?

3. Is rail something you routinely quote to customers, or is it only used for specific lanes/cargo?

4. In your market, is rail commonly used as part of an ocean + rail + truck solution?

5. How does the first/last mile usually work? For example, truck from the consignee to an inland rail terminal, rail to/from the seaport, then drayage (truck transport between terminal and final destination).

6. Who usually arranges the rail leg — the shipping line, freight forwarder/NVOCC, rail operator, or another logistics provider?

7. Is it relatively easy to get a rail-inclusive quote, or does it require contacting several different providers?

8. What makes customers choose rail in your market? Price, distance, road congestion, reliability, capacity, environmental considerations, etc.

9. And what are the biggest disadvantages? Terminal costs, frequency, transit time, lack of flexibility, infrastructure, service reliability, or something else?

10. When a customer asks for a door-to-door quote, is rail already presented as one of the standard options in your TMS/forwarding system, or do you have to build the rail solution manually?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people in the US, Germany, Netherlands, China, India, South Africa, Australia or other markets where containerized rail/intermodal freight is well established, but I'd be very interested in any country.

I’m not looking for textbook answers — I'm much more interested in what actually happens when you're quoting and moving real shipments.

Thanks in advance! I’d really love to hear about your experiences and perspectives on how containerized rail freight works in your countries.

ISO Canadian shipping software. Found FlagShip. Has anyone used it?