This week I spent the whole time wandering around looking for a forwarder. I knew that to move on to proper sales I would need a forwarder to carry the cargo, by air or by sea, but once I actually started reaching out, even terms like MOQ, FCL and LCL were unfamiliar.
I searched for a few companies with experience on South American routes and asked for quotes. Replies came faster than I expected, but the real problem came next. Every company’s quote had a different format: some listed only freight, others included customs clearance fees too.
At first I almost moved on thinking, “this one is the cheapest,” just from the numbers. But looking again, that quote left out local customs costs and additional charges. When I added everything up later, it was actually more expensive than the others.
This week I really learned that you can’t compare forwarder quotes by shipping cost alone.
So what I did all week was less comparing and more lining up the criteria. I asked each company separately about freight, customs fees and additional charges, and reorganized them. It seems like nothing, but only after doing this could I finally compare properly.
I haven’t decided which forwarder to sign with yet. I plan to get two or three more quotes, compare them on total cost and then decide, so both the price and the company are still undecided.
I wandered a lot, but it wasn’t all bad. I learned each term by looking it up and running into it myself, so next time I face a similar situation it should be much easier.
Next up is the step after the forwarder: sanitary registration. I’m wrestling with new terms again as I look into Peru’s NSO and Chile’s ISP, and I’ll share that story too.