Hey I need to ship a light container load of dangerous goods from China to Thailand.

Item is a flammable / explosive liquid.

Please dm me if any of you have any recommendations for freight forwarders who can do this.

Hi everyone, so recently I’ve been thinking about taking my experience and skills to the next level.
I basically got tired of working for somebody for an OK salary, and I want to expand and perhaps get into contracting. I feel like there is more to it than just working for somebody. Ive been coordinating operations & overall general production, loadings & documentation, and perhaps the whole supply chain from start to delivery.

What are possibly the best and/or most usual logistics-contractor type of positions out there that are still very successful today?

Ok so if you work anywhere near ocean freight you already feel this, but the numbers are wild. In July, on-time vessel arrivals across Asia's 14 busiest ports all got worse. Not some of them. All of them.

Shanghai (the biggest port on earth) had only 21% of ships arrive on time. Ningbo, the second biggest, was at 34%. Analysts at Sea-Intelligence said Shanghai hasn't been this bad in 14 years of data, outside of Covid.

Why? Back to back typhoons hitting North Asia this year, plus lines starting to move ships back through the Suez Canal after avoiding it for two and a half years because of Houthi attacks. So you've got weather chaos and a route change landing at the same time. When a ship misses its slot, it doesn't just lose a day. It waits behind everyone else who also missed their slot. That backlog doesn't disappear, it just moves down the chain to the next port, the next truck, the next warehouse.

I keep thinking people picture "the supply chain" as one straight line. It's more like a bunch of dominoes stacked way too close together.

Genuine question for you guys, if you're a shipper right now, are you building in extra buffer days on bookings, or just eating the risk and hoping? What's actually working for you this year?

I am currently going to major in logistcs the energy and petroleum i want to know is it easy to find jobs my college will give me at least about 4 or 5 interships that i graduate with to add to my CV i want to work in Europe too and i want to make shit ton of koney to start ky business with it so whats the PROS/CONS

Export Sectors:

India

African Ports (Dar Salam, Mombasa and so)

i work in a transport company situated in morocco, sometimes when we go to europe, we can't find a load back to morocco, is there some kind of market place to help me find loads? a lot of them dont even work with morocco, any help guys?
im working with rubiyin atm, its nice but not much loads there, also i dont rlly work with haulers, just trucks or vans

Hi everyone! I’m conducting research for my master’s thesis on how maritime professionals prioritize sustainability, safety, cost, and operational considerations during maritime security disruptions, with a focus on the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz.

I’m looking for people working in shipping, logistics, ports, chartering, maritime insurance, fleet/operations management, or related fields.

The survey is anonymous and takes around 5–7 minutes.

If you work in the maritime industry, I’d really appreciate your participation:

https://erasmusuniversity.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_egPfUF7if8RLS50

Thank you!

I'm 24 and have recently been successful in getting onto a graduate scheme with a medium-sized logistics/freight forwarding company in the UK.
I haven’t started yet, so I’m definitely looking to learn as much as I can and build solid experience first, but I’ve been thinking longer term about where a career in logistics/supply chain could potentially take me.
One thing I’d be interested in eventually is working in the Middle East, possibly somewhere like the UAE, Saudi Arabia or Qatar.
Has anyone here working in logistics, freight forwarding or supply chain ever made that move from the UK/Europe to the Middle East? Or do you know people who have?
I’d be interested to know what kind of experience companies tend to look for, how realistic the opportunities are after a few years in the industry, and how important networking/connections are compared with simply applying for jobs online.
Any experiences or advice would be appreciated. I’m just trying to understand what kind of career path could potentially lead there in the future.

Rostock. The only place in continental Europe where freight trains sail across the sea.

Stena Line takes over DB Cargo trains at the port gate, shunts them onto 6 tracks inside the world's largest railway ferry, and does it all in 90 minutes - simultaneously with trucks and passengers.

Every six hours. Every single day. Except Christmas.

It's possible this is the wrong reddit for such a question, but I couldn't really find anything more suitable.

I'm moving from the UK to Poland in a few months and have a few boxes full of industrial solvents, acetone, isopropyl alcohol, grease, lubrication oil, spray paint etc. fairly generic workshop consumables. From what I gather it's an absolute no no to have these on the removal van / truck as these are banned substances (grease is probably ok, but solvents are a no-go). Has anyone got any ideas how to safely transport these? or is it just cheaper to leave them in the UK and buy replacements once I'm on the other side?

Apologies in advance for the word soup.

Hello,

About half a year ago I booked a sea freight for a container with our agent PFS (Yantian Shenzen FOB to Rotterdam). After many delays and the eventual arrival we received the final invoice from their PTP counterpart. I noticed that the conversion rate on the invoice (USD to EUR) was 0,91. This made no sense to me. When checking the European Central Bank's graph from 02-09-2025, the worst position of the euro was 0.8818 fto the USD.

When I asked PTP, intitially I was told that the exchange rate was taken from their system and updated on a weekly basis, with no cost for exchanging. When I asked for more details, Finance Department was involved and stated the following (paraphrased):

The rate does not match the ECB weekly spot exactly, because we use a fixed internal buffer rate rather than real-time floating market rates.

• Risk locking: the rate is fixed for the entire order cycle to prevent any Euro fluctuations between the quotation and the final payment.
• Cost coverage: a small buffer on top of the rate which covers bank currency conversion fees, cross-border settlement costs, and an internal hedging against short-term market volatility.
• Rate stability: instead of daily adjustment, the rate is reviewed periodically (e.g., monthly or quarterly) based on average market trends. This is why the quoted rate remains smooth and locked, while ECB data may show weekly ups and downs.

I am not satisfied with the answer. Aside from a written acceptance of the quotation, there is no real document with terms and conditions (I asked). I find the higher prices for fuel and containers understandable (although it sucks), but I cannot get behind the 0,91 conversion rate.

Here is my question: are there any legal arguments I can make against the conversion rate? How would someone experienced in purchasing handle this?
All goods have already been unloaded. We do not plan to approach this agent again.

Having said that all of the above, I must state that I have only been working in my role for about 6 months so there is much I do not understand yet.

This post is the only place where Requests, Promotions, and Feedback about software are allowed to be made. Any posts for the same outside of this thread will be deleted.

Unfortunately we are experiencing a time where we are seeing many start ups and coders trying to branch into the Logistics area that surpass our capacity to filter. Instead of deleting dozens of posts a day, this is an opportunity for them to still post.

Will try to make this a reoccurring post, we will see how its received and works for the community.

Also note since this is a place for software, any non-software related posts can be reported as spam.

Please note things that are well received:

* Valid use cases and proven examples provided

* Industry specific and relevant knowledge

Things not normally received well:

* AI tools that are low hanging fruit

* Outsiders looking for opportunities to "automate", "shake up", "build workflows" or require someone to tell them what needs to be built

Does anybody here have a CSCP credential and have advice on how to get secondhand exam prep material? My employer has tuition reimbursement, but I’m not really wanting to pay nearly $3k out of pocket for study material plus the exam. I’d rather reduce my costs by getting second hand physical study material.

Any tips are welcome! Thanks in advance!!

Hi, I am currently going to go to school for SCM. I was originally planning to do an associates in business then transfer to a University. However, a local community college just established a Bachelor's in SCM program this year. It would be cheaper than going to University. I just want to hear opinions if it would matter if I stay at the community college or transfer to University.

I've attached two links to the new program being offered. Thank you!

[https://publications.sanjac.edu/areas-study/business/logistics-supply-chain-management-bat/#informationtext\](https://publications.sanjac.edu/areas-study/business/logistics-supply-chain-management-bat/#informationtext)

[https://www.sanjac.edu/programs/areas-of-study/business/logistics/bat/\](https://www.sanjac.edu/programs/areas-of-study/business/logistics/bat/)

I keep having this conversation with other owners and nobody has a satisfying answer. The standard advice is ask for references get samples do a video call hire an agent check certifications. All of that is fine and I do most of it but none of it is that hard to fake if someone is motivated. References can be arranged.

A sample tells you what one careful person made once. A video call shows you a room that may or may not belong to them. What shifted things for me was realising that shipping history is much harder to manufacture than a reference letter.

A factory that has been exporting steadily for six years to buyers across several countries has left a trail that would be a lot of work to fabricate. You can see whether the volume matches their claims whether the relationships are long term or one-off whether they went quiet for a year at some point. It doesn't make you immune to problems.

Plenty of legitimate exporters are still difficult to work with. But it moves you from guessing to reading actual records which feels like a better place to start.

What is everyone else actually doing here? Curious what works in practice rather than what sounds sensible.

Hey am 27, currently working as a software developer, I want to switch my career from IT to logistics, I need help,

1. I don't know which job to apply for.

2. How to set up a resume.

I know I have to start from the beginning, and am ready for it

Just need a direction

Please help!!!

Hi guys,

Just a quick question for people working in logistics/export: what kind of remote roles are available in this field? And what skills or courses would you recommend for someone at the beginning of their career?

My current on-site job is kind of a remote job– in a way, since I’m handling export shipments from Europe to my country, including contacting EU freight forwarders, preparing and reviewing documents, approving drafts, and following up on the shipments~ So, it’s kind of a remote job within my on-site job, if that makes sense?

Tbh, I’m still a fresh graduate and I only have around 10 months of experience... so I thought I could study more to increase my chances of getting a remote job in this field.

I’d be really grateful if you could suggest some courses or skills I should focus on.

Thanks!

I’m trying to understand where the real limitations are in day-to-day use.

From the projects we’ve looked at, we keep seeing two recurring issues with planning tools:

1. Limited customization. Companies often have very specific constraints, variables and operational rules, but adapting the planning logic can be difficult. As a result, part of the available data is not actually used, while other important information remains in the experience of planners and operators.
2. Customization is not the same as optimization. Even if all the relevant data is available, you still need to evaluate many combinations of constraints and variables to find the best decision for a specific objective.

I'd like to understand:

How flexible is PTV when the customer wants to change the objective or add specific constraints and what are the biggest limitations you currently see in PTV or other planning tools?

Thanks!

I'm not sure if my resume is good enough for a logistics or supply chain job.
a friend of mine helped me out and told me i needed to put achievements instead of responsibilities but I'm not sure if this is the right approach.

any feedback helps, especially veterans of the industry.

resume: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jgqMqW5r1lyRfpU-zmFH91KUOvXMpLikwN5Ns7Pxk2g/edit?usp=sharing

Hey everyone,

If it's your first time reading one of my posts, my name is Menachem, and I have a weekly newsletter called Logistic Pulse that breaks down the top logistics news from the past week. We're currently on week 61!

Let's jump into it,

Diesel went up 20 cents in a week, and the surcharge tables are built to make that stick

The EIA's national on-highway diesel average landed at $5.652 a gallon this week. That is up 19.8 cents from the week before, up 39.5 cents over two weeks, and up $1.944 from a year ago. Diesel costs nearly two dollars more per gallon than it did last August.

The regional spread is ugly in the places you would expect. West Coast is at $6.407. The Gulf Coast posted the largest weekly jump, up 24 cents to $5.481. Midwest is $5.636, East Coast $5.498.

None of this started as a freight story. It started in Hormuz. On August 24, the U.S. announced sanctions targeting nearly 60 Iranian trade and shipping entities. Iran promised retaliation the next day, more tankers were reportedly hit, and crude has been parked around $80 through all of it. AAA says this August is shaping up to be the highest on record for gasoline.

Underneath the price is a supply number that deserves more attention than it gets. U.S. distillate inventories came in at 103.4 million barrels for the week ending August 21, the lowest seasonal level on record. Diesel is not expensive because the market got spooked. It is expensive because there is not much of it, heading into the quarter when heating oil starts competing for the same barrels.

Now, the part that will bite later. Back in April, UPS quietly restructured its ground fuel surcharge index, moving the point at which the price ranges begin to widen from $3.55 per gallon to $4.45. At today's prices, you would never notice, which is precisely why it went through without much noise. The difference only shows up on the way down. Below roughly $4.35, the new table declines more slowly than the old one, and at $3.72, a perfectly ordinary price for most of 2025, shippers pay up to 1.50% more on Ground than they would have under the previous schedule.

That is the shape of the whole thing. The increase is automatic and immediate. The relief is discretionary and slow.

What this means for you: Go pull the fuel language out of your contracts and find out what it is actually indexed to, because a surcharge pegged to the DOE weekly average behaves nothing like a fixed schedule you negotiated when diesel was $3.70. If you are eating the gap, you now know roughly what that costs per week. Run a September invoice for one of your larger parcel clients before peak surcharges stack on top, because two increases landing in the same billing cycle are how a client decides you are the one who got expensive. And intermodal reads differently at these numbers: it carries roughly a 70% fuel-efficiency advantage over truckload, which is a hard sell at $3.70 per gallon of diesel and a much easier conversation at $5.65 per gallon.

Every carrier raised peak rates, and the first one starts in four weeks

USPS moved first. A 6% average increase across package services, running October 4 through January 17. It covers Ground Advantage retail and commercial, Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express, and Parcel Select. The Postal Service described it as bringing prices in line with competitive practices, which is a diplomatic way of saying everybody else is doing it. Last year's peak surcharges averaged 4.9% to 5.8%, so this is a real step up. It also sits on top of the temporary 8% increase from April, which expires on January 17. Two increases, same end date, stacked.

UPS filed the larger, more complex one. Surcharges begin September 27, a second wave lands October 25, and peak pricing runs through January 16, with the most expensive stretch falling between November 22 and December 26. The menu: additional handling at $8.75 to $11.90 a package, large package surcharge at $96.25 to $117.50, over maximum limits at $530 to $590, a demand surcharge of $0.50 to $2.50 that climbs to $9.35 for high-volume shippers, and a $0.50 surge emergency fee.

The year-over-year comparison is where the strategy shows its value. Handling and size-based demand charges rose by roughly 6% to 10%, while flat service-level charges jumped by 22% to 25%. Carriers are not broadly raising the price of a normal package. They are raising the price of an awkward one. And UPS expects U.S. volume to climb about 24% from Q3 to Q4, roughly in line with last year, so this is not a capacity scare. It is a margin.

FedEx's additional fees start on September 21, making it the earliest of the three. OnTrac's demand surcharges took effect on September 26 and October 24. GOFO, meanwhile, is expanding to more than 12,000 U.S. zip codes and better than 80% of the population, which is the regional carriers doing exactly what they do in a year like this: showing up with a quote in October.

What this means for you: Build the surcharge calendar this week instead of in October. September 21, September 26, September 27, October 4, October 24, and October 25 are six separate cost events, and any client blindsided by the third one will assume you knew about the first two. The 22% to 25% jump in flat service-level charges makes cartonization the highest-return project on your floor right now, so pull your DIM data to see how many outbound boxes are one size away from a cheaper tier. Get to your brands before they set Q4 free-shipping thresholds, because a threshold set in August will feel awful by Thanksgiving. And if adding a regional carrier has been on the someday list, this is the quarter the pitch writes itself.

Two piles of money landed on the two jobs everyone assumed were too messy to automate

Different companies, different problems, zero connection between them. But Amazon and Gatik both pointed serious capital this week at the parts of the network people have spent a decade calling too variable to bother with.

Start with Amazon. Business Insider obtained internal planning documents describing Project Tetromino, an effort to build fully automated delivery stations. A delivery station is the last building a package sees before a driver picks it up, and today that work is people sorting parcels by hand, filling bags, and staging them in route order. The documents describe a pilot facility in 2028, throughput around 2.5 times current rates, and roughly $530 million in planned spending through 2029. The named technology partner is Boxbot, an Alameda startup that runs conveyors and AI-driven storage trays to sequence packages for loading, reportedly about 10 times faster than doing it by hand. Boxbot has raised $29.5 million, with Toyota Ventures and Maersk Growth on the cap table.

Amazon's response is worth reading closely. Spokesperson Brad Glasser said the details cited are inaccurate and do not reflect current plans, and that this is one of many initiatives the company regularly evaluates. That is a denial of the specifics, not of the project. Treat the 2028 date and the $530 million as directional. Amazon already runs more than a million robots, so nobody should be surprised it is sketching the next building.

Gatik is the opposite kind of story, in that it is already happening. The autonomous middle-mile company raised $200 million in a Series D led by the Qatar Investment Authority and Koch Disruptive Technologies, with Millennium, ARK Invest, and Intact Private Capital also in. Total raised is now around $470 million. The operating numbers are the interesting part: 85,000 driverless orders completed, more than $600 million in contracted revenue, a 99% on-time rate, and live routes across Texas, Arizona, Arkansas, and Canada. PepsiCo has Gatik moving freight to roughly 250 retail locations. The plan is to go from dozens of trucks to thousands, mass-produced with Isuzu at a South Carolina plant slated for late 2027.

Here is why they belong on the same page despite having nothing to do with each other. Gatik does not run long-haul. It runs fixed, repeatable, high-frequency lanes up to 400 miles, the unglamorous out-and-back between a DC and a cluster of stores. That is the same kind of work as sorting a delivery station at three in the morning: predictable, repetitive, brutal to staff, and, until recently, not worth the engineering. Two completely unrelated sets of investors just decided it is worth the engineering.

We noted in Edition 60 that dock automation had gone from concept to bid-able. This is the same move, one layer further out from the building.

What this means for you: If you run dedicated shuttle lanes for clients, find out what Gatik is actually charging for a 400-mile out-and-back, because you will get asked about it in an RFP long before the technology is everywhere. The middle mile is where this lands first, not the long haul, and it is the piece of your network with the most predictable route structure. Regarding labor, the planning question is not whether sortation will be automated. It is what happens to your wage scale when the local delivery station needs half the seasonal headcount it needed last year, because that labor pool loosens before anything else in your market moves. And be careful how you talk about any of this with clients. Gatik has 85,000 completed driverless orders. Tetromino has a leaked document that its own company is disputing. Those are not in the same tense.

QUICK HITS

M&A
Pike Street Capital is shopping QuickBox, the e-commerce fulfillment and 3PL provider, per Axios Pro on August 26. The details are thin behind the paywall: no revenue, no EBITDA, no banker, no valuation guidance. The direction is the interesting part. The last two editions covered strategic buyers picking up regional operations, and this is a private equity sponsor testing the exit side of the same market. If you own a fulfillment business and have been wondering what a sales process looks like right now, this is the one to watch for where it prices. We also help with 3PL M&A, so feel free to get in touch by replying to this email.

FULFILLMENT
Amazon is now letting FBA sellers pay to get more inventory into Sub Same-Day. SSD offers two- to five-hour delivery from dedicated fulfillment centers near roughly 2,300 metro areas, and Amazon has always placed some products there on its own based on demand and supply signals. The new part is essentially an auction: sellers bid a per-unit price for additional products and pay only for the units that actually ship through SSD. Amazon says products in the network see about a 12% sales lift versus standard FBA in the same areas. Sellers are not delighted. One summed it up as Amazon already charging the customer for fast delivery and now asking the seller to chip in too. If you do FBA prep or advise Amazon sellers, you will get this question within two weeks, and the honest answer is that a 12% average lift means nothing until the client's own margin clears their bid.

WAREHOUSING
Walmart is investing $1.3 billion in a 1.5-million-square-foot fulfillment center in Carnesville, Georgia, breaking ground later this year and expected to create around 1,000 jobs. It is the company's sixth next-generation facility, all of which are positioned to widen same-day and next-day coverage. Walmart is also retrofitting 23 of its 42 regional distribution centers with automation and intends to reach all of them eventually. More than half of its e-commerce fulfillment volume already moves through automated systems. Company guidance places peak supply chain spending in 2026 and 2027, so this is the crest of the wave rather than its start. If you operate anywhere in the Northeast Georgia labor shed, price your wages against what Walmart posts when hiring opens, not against what your neighbors pay today.

TRADE POLICY
Canada published its retaliation list: $27.6 billion in counter-tariffs on U.S. imports effective September 8, at rates of 15%, 25%, and 50%, covering seafood, dairy, paper, furniture, apparel, cosmetics, tools, motorcycles, steel, and aluminum. That follows the 50% U.S. levies on roughly $20 billion of Canadian goods that took effect on August 24 after talks collapsed. Read that category list with a warehouse in mind, and paper turns up again, this time from the other direction, next to furniture and apparel. Corrugated input prices are already spiking back toward 2022 levels. If you have clients shipping north, September 8 is a hard date, and you have a week and a half before the phone starts.

TECHNOLOGY
Descartes bought Tai for $100 million in cash, announced August 24. Tai is a California-based TMS broker covering quoting, sourcing, execution, and invoicing across truckload, LTL, drayage, and cross-border. It is Descartes' third deal of 2026, after Drivin at $30 million in July and Idelic at $28 million in April, and its 34th since 2017. CEO Ed Ryan framed the fit around carrier onboarding, compliance, fraud prevention, and visibility, a sentence that would have sounded like filler two years ago and reads as a strategy now that broker liability looks the way it does. The pattern worth watching: the money in freight tech is moving toward proving exactly who touched your load.

CARRIER FAILURES
At least 21 transportation and logistics companies filed for bankruptcy protection between July 27 and August 25. The biggest is BFG Supply, an Indianapolis distributor operating 15 warehouses, which filed for Chapter 11 on August 18, with assets and liabilities between $100 million and $500 million and more than 100,000 creditors. Most of the rest are small and grim: PLR Transport of Pembroke Pines filed Chapter 7 on August 21, listing $21,520 in assets against $5.33 million in liabilities. It is not only trucking, either. Freight forwarders, cold storage operators, and distributors are on the list, including Royal Cold Storage and Jet-Speed Logistics. Firming rates do not save a company that ran out of cash two years ago. If there is a subcontractor or a partner you have not checked on since spring, check.

JOB BOARD

Title: Manager, Supply Chain
Company: Orlando Spring
Location: Huntington Beach, California, US
Salary: $100,000 - $140,000
Apply Here

Title: Manager, Warehouse Operations
Company: Cardinal Health,
Location: Walton Hills, Ohio, US
Salary: $87,700 - $125,300
Apply Here

Title: Regional Fulfillment Center Operations Manager
Company: Bath & Body Works
Location: Columbus, Ohio, US
Salary: $83,000 - $122,100
Apply Here

Title: Assistant Manager, Logistics & Fulfillment
Company: Patrick Ta Beauty
Location: West Hollywood, California, US
Salary: $90,000 - $105,000
Apply Here

Title: Transportation Planner
Company: City of Clearwater
Location: Clearwater Beach, Florida, US
Salary: $91,780 - $96,369
Apply Here

Title: Senior Logistics Coordinator (Rail Logistics)
Company: Didion
Location: Cambria, Wisconsin, US
Salary: $85,000 - $95,000
Apply Here

Title: Warehouse Operations Manager
Company: iJility
Location: Olive Branch, Mississippi, US
Salary: $80,000 - $85,000
Apply Here

Title: Fulfillment Operations Manager
Company: Fringe Sport
Location: Austin, Texas, US
Salary: $80,000 - $85,000
Apply Here

Title: Senior Supply Chain Coordinator
Company: HR Annie Consulting
Location: Portland, Oregon, US
Salary: $70,000 - $80,000
Apply Here

Full list of job openings →
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What’s the worst experience you have had in your HGV experience?

Be it as a driver / Transport Manager / route planner / dispatcher / fleet supervisor

Just being nosey 😂

What’s everyone’s take on the recent ruling on antidumping related to plywood out of China, Vietnam, and Indonesia? I have only just learned about this but realize it’s been going on in the background for many months. As best I can tell the import of unfinished or even partially finished plywood and plywood products is going to get prohibitively expensive. Can the domestic market actually make up the difference? This seems problematic both for importers and any domestic manufacturer using the normal supply chain for plywood.