Freight into Europe
We arrange inbound air, sea and road freight through contracted partners, quoted per lane and rebilled at the negotiated carrier cost with zero markup. The items in a consignment keep their identity to the dock.
Inbound freight is where a brand usually loses sight of its own goods: a purchase order becomes a container number, the container becomes a pallet, and the units inside are not seen again until a warehouse counts them. We arrange the inbound leg, air, sea and road from the factory into the warehouse, including Asia into Europe, through the partners who hold the ships, the aircraft and the trucks, and we keep the item identity attached to the goods the whole way.
Arranging a freight lane
Send us the lane: origin, destination warehouse, the mode you want or the one you want us to recommend, the volume per month and a description of the goods. We come back with a price per lane at the negotiated carrier cost, rebilled with zero markup as a line you can read in your account, the same rule as for parcels. The partner on the lane carries the goods under its own contract, and you stay the principal on the transport contract. Customs brokerage stays with the broker on the lane; the difference is that a customs hold appears in your account as a status against named items instead of a container that has gone quiet.
Item identity from factory to dock
The weight, the dimensions and the contents that later make a label accurate are set at the purchase order, when the identity is allocated against the units the factory will make. From then on every event writes to the same record: the consignment note, the loading, the arrival at the port, the receipt at the warehouse. Consolidation is usually where inbound visibility ends, because the units disappear into a pallet with a different number. Here the pallet gets its own identifier and the items inside keep theirs, so the same units can be followed from the purchase order through the container to the delivery, and a short delivery shows up at receipt as a named list of missing items.
An identity that boards the ship with the goods keeps every unit in sight to the dock.
Receipt at the destination warehouse
Because the consignment is known item by item before it lands, the receiving site can see the incoming items about a week ahead and reconcile the receipt at item level. Your warehouse or 3PL covers that stop. The passport for each item starts at the purchase order too, so the freight leg is already part of the item's record when the goods are received.
The cost of freight
Freight is rebilled at the negotiated carrier cost with zero markup, on its own line, and we earn on the subscription. There is no margin riding on which lane or which mode we propose. How we bill shipping explains the invoice, and the same reading of each invoice line applies to a freight invoice as to a parcel one.
Questions we get asked.
Which lanes do you arrange?
Air, sea and road from the factory into the warehouse, including Asia into Europe. Send the lane with the volume and we quote it at carrier cost.
Who handles customs?
The broker on the lane, as now. We hold no brokerage licence and do not act as a broker. A customs hold shows in your account as a status against named items, so you know which units are affected rather than only that a container is late.
Does the passport start at the factory or at the warehouse?
At the purchase order, before the goods exist. The identity is allocated when the order goes to the factory, so the freight leg is already part of the item's record when it is received at the dock.
Is freight billed differently from parcels?
No. The carrier's price, passed through at cost, on its own line, with the subscription as the only thing we keep.
Related pages.
See it on your own orders.
A 30-minute call on your own flows, with a clear answer at the end.