There are several ways to find partners abroad, and due to the distance factor, most of them involve a little help from the internet. If you don’t know any freight forwarder in a specific country and your current partners can’t recommend you one either, what will you do? If your answer is accessing an online freight forwarders list, you should be aware of the risks involved in doing this.

There are several free lists of forwarding businesses online, but if you are looking for a reliable partner to work with, how can you be sure to pick the right one from these lists? A freight forwarders list is nothing more than a document with the contact information of companies in different countries, without anything that shows which ones are the best or most suitable to your needs.

Even if you access the company’s website, it is still really hard to tell if you can truly believe what they are offering. In this post, we will show you some reasons why you shouldn’t solely rely on this source when looking for a freight forwarder online.

Risks of using an online freight forwarders list

1- Lack of infrastructure

One of the most important attributes to look for in a partner is their infrastructure. After all, this is a factor that most likely reflects directly on the quality of the service delivered by them. If you are looking for a forwarder to provide you with integrated logistics support, for instance, you should count on a company that offers facilities that allows them to do so effectively, such as warehouses in strategic locations, vehicles with tracking system and so on.

However, you can’t really have any assurance of a company’s infrastructure just by finding their contact information on a freight forwarders list, right?

2- Financial issues

Shipping cargo internationally is an activity that involves dealing with a great amount of money. Therefore, you need to make sure that your partners are financially reliable in order not to face any issues such as delayed payments or even lack of payment. The company’s financial background, however, is another factor you can’t check just by finding them through an online list.

3- Wrong expertise

Although most freight forwarders offer a similar range of services, each company has their own area of expertise. This means that even though the company you found through an online list may say that they are fully ready to support you in a certain demand, in reality, the operation might involve something they lack expertise in.

Let’s illustrate this with an example, you need are a Chinese freight forwarder who needs support from an American partner to receive your cargo at a U.S. port and road ship it to another state. Using a freight forwarders list, you found a company that says they offer road shipping, however, this is something they rarely do and their professionals might not be the best people to know how to accommodate your cargo safely in a truck. This could end up compromising the integrity of your cargo when it reaches its final destination, right?

4- Poor customer support

Good customer support is an essential thing when it comes to doing business with someone from another country. Your partner needs to have a helpful reachable team. Otherwise, how will you know about the development of the operation or if there are any problems along the way? This is something you definitely can’t tell just by finding a company in a freight forwarders list.

How to build safe partnerships then?

After reading all the risks mentioned above, you might be wondering what you can do to prevent yourself from picking unreliable partners on the internet. Fortunately, there is an easy way: being a part of a good logistics group, such as Twig Logistics Network.

Although logistics networks require the payment of a membership fee, their members are much more trustworthy than random forwarders that you find just by browsing online. But there are other ways to ensure you only work with reliable partners and to inform you about all of them, we have created an eBook with a “Guide for finding the right freight forwarder” for your business.

To download this exclusive material for free, all you need to do is fill out the form below: