Freight shipment simply means the transportation of a large portion of goods and services via air, land or water. However, this term is used best when there is an international border and transaction.
Freights, the large portion of goods are no easy deal to handle when international borders get involved in it. You have to be careful about customs rules and regulations along with the freight’s weight and expenses.
Basically, we find about 18 types of freight in logistics services. Among these, the time-specific freights and their shipments are quite fragile and complicated to handle. Since it is called time-specific freight, you must have had at least a little idea about what kind of frights it might be.
Yes, the time-specific freight means the handling of fragile products. To be more specific, it includes products like fruits and vegetables, Pharmaceuticals, Biologicals, Meat and Fish, Dairy products, Smallgoods and Wines.
Such products are also called perishable products which by nature get damaged within a short period of time. Thus, it should be delivered within a small span of time. We must be careful about handling such goods while importing or exporting.
Generally, you can use freight shipping services to promptly, securely, and affordably deliver your goods to a specific location. However, it also gives several advantages whether you’re shipping your products by sea, air, or land.
Since they have a broad knowledge of carriers, they make sure that the cargo arrives at its destination promptly and safely. Likewise, they also help to reduce shipping costs for freights.
Their primary concern somehow is providing excellent customer service. For those unfamiliar with the freight shipping industry, it can be challenging to understand and navigate, therefore a shipping company clears all of those obstacles for you. Along with these, additional services;
- making claims for insurance
- cargo protection
- combining shipments
Now that we’ve discussed these aspects of freight shipping, it’s time to discuss time-specific freight shipping briefly. All packages are shipped with care, but perishable goods are shipped with even greater care because of their time-sensitive nature.
Fragile items can break while being transported, even if they are enclosed in a box with plenty of dunnage and their product packaging.
Although shipping fragile goods may seem difficult, it is not always the case. The following are some top recommendations for packaging and shipping delicate items. The process might seem familiar to you if you’ve ever packed your own package.
Select a box that is only marginally bigger than the object
Avoid using boxes with too much empty space inside of them because this could cause the contents to move.
Put padding around the object.
You will need to wrap your products in a lot of dunnage if they are not manufactured with supportive packaging and are kept loose.
Put the object in foam if necessary.
For extremely pricey or delicate items, you might want to make a foam enclosure that is custom-moulded to the package’s exact measurements. This is not a very scalable solution, that much is obvious.
Make use of packing peanuts or air pillows
If the box is empty, make sure to fill it with packing materials like airbags, packing peanuts, or crinkle paper.
Label the box with “fragile”
A fragile sticker or label will alert the shipping company that the box must be handled carefully. As long as they don’t obscure the shipping label, you can even use multiple stickers to guarantee that they are noticed by carriers.
Put a tilt or impact detector there.
Usually used for shipments that must be handled carefully and upright, these devices are used. Although they are extremely expensive and uncommon for parcel shipments, they not only alert you when a fragile item may have been damaged but also urge the handlers to take extra precautions.