March 11 - A keynote industry report that shows shippers are increasingly looking towards using the services of a professional freight forwarder. A key driver has been the increasingly fraught relationship between shippers and carriers that has become more complex and difficult as capacity shrinks in this recession.
Work by freight industry consultants Drewry Supply Chain Advisers has confirmed a trend that forwarders have more than doubled their share of the ocean container market since the 1980s as shippers have fallen out with carriers and turned to forwarders to secure capacity on the world’s shipping lanes.
The report indicates that forwarders’ share of sea freight bookings rose from around 15 percent in the 1980s to more than a third in 2009.
The report – Using International Freight Forwarders – Costs, Contracts and Best Practices – cites the increasing difficulty of securing box capacity ex Asia last year as a main cause of shippers switching to freight forwarders.