If you are shipping items for your business, you need to find the best prices for your items to be shipped. When you are shipping items, especially large items, you need to find the best prices because it will save your business money in the long run. That’s especially true if you are making several shipments. While the differences in prices might not be very large, they can add up over time. A few pounds difference per shipment could add up to hundreds or thousands of pounds over the course of a fiscal year. You need to find the best available prices. If time is not a factor, the best solution is often sea freight.
Sea Freighting
Sea freight is often the most affordable type of freighting because the freight container ships are so large. They’re incredibly large ships that can hold several different containers at once. Those containers can hold an incredible amount of items. Also, the buoyancy of water helps the ships contain more items. The weight of the ship and the shipment is dispersed by the buoyancy of the water; therefore, the weight of your items is not as important as it might be when you are shipping something by air or by land. The sea freight services are also priced by the seaport fees.
Seaport Fees
One of the most important drivers of sea freight prices are seaport fees. When your containers are shipped from one place to the next, they are stored at a seaport, loaded onto a container ship, unloaded at their destination, and stored at a seaport again. All of those different steps occupy time and space. Also, there have to be employees to load and unload these container ships. They’ll then need someone to load it onto a truck and drive it the final mile to your destination. All of those people need to be paid, and the companies that employ them need to make profits. To that end, the price of their labour has to be factored into the cost of freighting.
The Time
The biggest drawback to sea freight is actually the time it takes to freight something across the ocean. While it might not be a significant amount of time in some cases, it will require some flexibility. The weather is unpredictable and uncontrollable; it’s even more unpredictable and extreme at sea. That means a storm can pop up and delay your shipment. The container ship might have to wait before it can proceed or it might have to go around the storm, which will add time to your shipment.
If you do not have very strict time constraints, a sea freight is often the most efficient and affordable way to freight your items. The prices are less contingent upon the weight of your items.
