Americans today have many options for shipping and transporting goods. With small retailers finding new avenues of shipping through large online retailers such as Amazon, the complexities of the shipping and transport system have undergone changes in the past decade or so.
Much of this change in shipping and transport has to do with the rise of the global infrastructure system. While goods were mostly shipped across the country for decades and centuries, more and more, goods began to get shipped in from countries all over the world, form China to Spain to Mexico to South Africa.
The rise of the global economy has sped this along, with companies holding manufacturing plants in different locations around the world due to price imbalances. For instance, many manufacturing companies in America have relocated their manufacturing facilities to locations where the work can be done for cheaper.
Americans face these opportunities with the shipping and transportation industries growing more technologically advanced. Shipping industries have the ability to send goods all around the world. They do this by using a fleet of transportation vehicles to transport goods from location to location.
These locations vary widely. A large company that has reach in different countries relies on different transportation systems and vehicles to move goods across boards and through through different locations. These locations may include Bangladesh or Singapore or Rio de Janeiro or Edmonton.
American companies try to organize these shipments to reach the right person in a timely fashion. American companies do this by relying on sophisticated logistics systems and those trained in logistics to better move goods in and out of countries in a timely manner.
Logistics issues face companies every day. There may be a truck full of goods that gets overturned in Mumbai or a train that gets delayed in Bangkok or a plane that gets stuck in a location in Phoenix. It is possible that these issues can cause a delay for the manufacturing company due to the halt in progress.
There are a few consequences to this kind of delay. There is the customer–another company (as in the case of business to business transactions) or a retail customer (as in the case of a person ordering a product online). This is a time-consuming process for both the company and the customer.
A company stands to lose public or private face if these delays occur. If the product is a massively in demand product such as a new iPhone, a delay in shipment often occurs with customer upheaval and certainly frustration around some of the customers as the product struggles to make it to the customers in time.
A company sometimes has to rely on a number of unknown entities–such as outsourced logistics, transportation, and packaging companies–to deliver a package to customers. A customer may choose to put the responsibility on the company the product was purchased from as to why their shipment didn’t get to them but it’s a multi-company job to ship.
A customer may become frustrated with the ability of the company to ship their package, but in truth the responsibility lies with many others and its those others that have an obligation to the customer and the original company in the first place.
Whether it is ltl shipping, overweight shipping, expedited shipping service or specialty freight, shipping companies have to expect difficulties with their shipments. Customers expect their shipments at a certain time and customers expect this shipping system to run efficiently and smoothly.
It’s big business. Spending in logistics and transport equaled $1.48 trillion in 2015. Nearly 12 million vehicles move goods around the U.S. transport system.
One of the buzzwords in the shipping industry today is called “expedited freight company.” The expedited freight company works at moving freight around places in the world at a sped up space. In the case of customer packages, an expedited freight company might get a company’s package to the customer in sometimes as little as one day.
An expedited freight company may struggle with this demand, which is why an expedited freight company that does their job has a leg up on other expedited freight companies who may look for pharma logistics services or trade show freight to be shipped quickly. The expedited shipping company does a crucial job within the shipping industry.
