Mercator Cargo celebrates its 22nd birthday this week. Paul (our MD) set up the international freight forwarding provider in 1991 after fifteen years already in service in the international forwarding industry.
In 1991 Mercator was based in London and has since grown to a core team of five experienced freight forwarders plus admin staff. The majority of the international freight forwarding team are family with personal interest in the businesses performance and customer care. This is a great strength, as it makes our core ethos to ensure that the customer is happy. We pride ourselves on excellent, personal service in the international freight forwarding industry.
Mercator has now been based in Portsmouth for 15 years with the wealth of international freight forwarding business support and experienced shipping personnel in the area. Two of our experienced international freight forwarders are local to Portsmouth with previous years’ experience in shipping and logistics.
The international freight forwarding industry has changed over the past twenty years when faxes and telephones were the main communication tools, now Skype and emails. Business advertising was in the international freight forwarding magazines, now it is online and website promotion.
Although Mercator has kept up with the times in many ways, we pride ourselves to be old fashioned in core business values – that is our main aims are customer care and satisfaction, we listen to what our customers’ needs are and provide a service to fit that. Each of our freight forwarders in the office have a personal client list that they take care of, so if you were to choose us as your international freight forwarder, you would always be dealing with the same shipping expert.
If you are looking for an international freight forwarder provider for air, sea or road freight worldwide, then get in contact for a discussion of your requirements and a quotation – Tel. 02392 756 575. Email: sales@mercatorcargo.co.uk.
It is advised that you appoint an experienced freight forwarder when you import goods from China, the Far East or the Indian-Subcontinent. It is quite a well-known issue that if you rely on your supplier to arrange the shipment when the goods arrive into the UK there are extra higher charges payable.
Why does this happen? When the supplier of the goods arranges the shipment to the UK, they will contact a UK based agent to accept the shipment. In return for this, the supplier will expect ‘remuneration in kind’ – these are extra charges, and ultimately it is the UK importer who will have to stump up the bill.
It is essential that if you wish to import goods from either China, the Far East or the Indian-Subcontinent, that you choose a reliable freight forwarder who can ‘take control of your cargo and charges’.
What does this mean in plain English? By nominating Mercator Cargo as your UK based freight forwarder to take the whole shipment from origin either under FOB (an INCO term ‘free on board’) or EX Work Terms, and avoiding CIF Terms (cost insurance freight – where the shipper pays/arranges the freight), in other words taking ‘full control of your shipment’ and letting us arrange the freight, there will not be any unexpected higher charges upon arrival.
For example, we recently shipped in some goods from Pakistan for a customer – for one of the containers we were given ‘control’ and we arranged the full shipment from the door in Pakistan, to the port, via ocean freight and onwards to the door in the UK. The same customer had another shipment from Pakistan of a similar size from the same supplier in the same origin, however they decided to allow their supplier to arrange the shipment under CIF Terms. Using this option, they incurred an invoice for the UK port charges and local UK delivery fees, not including ocean freight, which came to 75% of the invoice total of our full door-to-door shipment from Pakistan to the UK. In other words, they paid too much in charges for their shipment.
If you decide to appoint Mercator as your freight forwarder and give us ‘control’ of your cargo you could save yourself money. Don’t get ripped off by another option which might look cheaper, because in the long run, it is likely that it will not be cheaper. If you switch to FOB or EX Works and choose us to be your freight forwarder starting from at least the ocean freight, you can eliminate any ‘surprise’ charges and you could save your business money and avoid headaches when the cargo does not arrive on time, and costs you more than it should.
Contact Mercator before you agree on your buying terms. If you buy on CIF (cost insurance freight – where the shipper pays/arranges the freight) you are at risk of paying too much for the service you are receiving.
So give us a call to speak to a member of the imports team and discuss how we can take control of your import shipment and most importantly your charges so they don’t get out of hand – Tel. 02392 756 575. Email: sales@mercatorcargo.co.uk.
10, St George’s Business Centre,
St Georges Square,
Portsmouth, PO1 3EZ, UK
Mercator is a family-run, UK based independent freight forwarder, offering highly effective sea, road and air freight services around the world.
