Offer comparisons for air freight and sea freight – comparing transport offers is still a problem

The air freight and sea freight forwarding market essentially consists of six different types of offers. Offers for air freight transport always refer to general cargo shipments, while for sea freight transport a distinction is made between less container load (LCL) and full container load (FCL), i.e. general cargo shipments and container transport. Both air and sea freight transport offers are differentiated in two further ways. There are so-called spot offers, which refer to specific shipments, and rate offers. The latter are a type of framework agreement that is valid for a certain period of time and includes, for example, kg prices, so-called rates. From these, specific shipping costs for air freight or container shipments can be calculated.

There are several services that companies that rely on transport services can choose from to obtain and compare transport offers from air freight and sea freight forwarders.

Hiring freight consultants is one way for shippers to find new air freight and sea freight forwarders and compare their transport offers with those of the current carrier. Freight consultants usually develop Excel templates for the logistics service providers to use for bidding purposes, or they simply summarize or harmonize the data from the logistics provider offers into custom-developed templates. This allows the consultants to compare the different transport offers and give shippers recommendations on which logistics service providers they should work with. A second approach used by freight consultants is to put transports out to tender. Forwarders who participate in a tender are usually larger companies, as they have the know-how to handle a tender and can also bear the financial and legal risks associated with it. Typically, such freight consultants are hired by larger or medium-sized shippers.

Smaller freight consultants work for regional shippers, while larger freight consultants work at a country level. Their pricing is usually a percentage of the price reduction achieved or a contractual fee for consulting services. One focus of their service is increasingly on finding cheap freight forwarders or obtaining cheap transport offers.

Tender platforms usually work in the area of ​​long-term price agreements and use Excel tables that are filled out by air freight and sea freight forwarders and uploaded online. Shippers and logistics service providers must register on the platforms. The tendering process corresponds to the steps shown in the table above. In terms of technology and content, these services are already more sophisticated than the services of freight consultants. They often function as web applications and can, for example, cover a large number of trade countries, cost items and other specifications. Larger companies generally use tendering platforms, which are usually internationally oriented.

Tender platforms are often referred to as market or bid-down platforms, where the focus is on reducing transport prices. Quality aspects in transport processing are secondary, although they are officially included in the tendering process. Tender platforms advertise that logistics service providers can compete for transport orders on their platform. They also promote their services by offering shippers the opportunity to invite sea freight and air freight forwarders they do not yet know to tender.

There are various concepts in this group. What they all have in common is that they represent the interface between the shipper and the container forwarder and replace them in their role. In contrast to freight consultants and tendering platforms, this group focuses more on the spot segment for individual shipments. In addition to air freight, this mainly refers to container transport. Shippers are enabled to process transport requests and bookings directly via their platform. With their services, platforms sometimes become logistics service providers themselves and essentially replace traditional logistics service providers.

These are in-house solutions developed by shippers. They are sometimes used in large companies that have their own logistics department with the relevant transport expertise. These shippers have very specific ideas about which cost items their transport offers should include and how their transport offers should be structured. They independently develop offer templates that must be filled out by logistics service providers. These templates are usually Excel-based and can sometimes also be connected to a database. These tools are sometimes very sophisticated technically and can make the offer process efficient for shippers.

IT companies offer shippers IT solutions that are tailored to their company and can be installed. These tools can act as an interface between the IT infrastructure of shippers and logistics service providers. The solutions are expensive, can only be financed by very large companies, and are rarely found in the area of ​​obtaining air and sea freight quotes.

Digital freight forwarders are regularly asked to provide the transport offers mentioned. Even if digital freight forwarders are ahead of established logistics service providers in terms of digitalization, their offer is based on classic air freight and sea freight forwarding and transport services. They can therefore be used to send air freight and ship containers. It should be noted that a digital freight forwarder is not a neutral authority and therefore cannot be used for an independent and objective comparison of several air freight and sea freight transport offers.

Traditional logistics service providers, freight forwarders, airlines and shipping companies are currently digitizing their processes. Even though these companies usually still provide their offers via Excel, PDF and email, there are initial attempts to send shippers transport offers digitally. This happens either via digital offer tools on the website or independent platforms. As with digital freight forwarders, this is simply a modified form of obtaining offers from a single partner. However, this still does not give companies the opportunity to obtain air and sea freight transport offers independently from several partners and to compare them objectively.