If you were ever thinking of starting importing or exporting for trade, now is a great time to start. Not only can you get amazing overseas shipping rates, but the service providers are stepping up their game since the market has gotten so much more competitive. When the economy started to downturn, people backed off and all international freight shipping companies suffered as a result. Now, with the continued economic issues, companies are strategizing to increase their market shares by perfecting their products. Take Maersk for instance. They are the largest shipping company in the world and over the years, they have come up with innovative ideas and make them mainstream just by the sheer volume of their market share. That ultimately becomes industry standard and helps even the smaller importers and exporters. They recently started a new process called Daily Maersk from their Asia/Europe lanes which will reimburse shippers of the cargo is late. This is a new program to make the transit times and schedules more reliable. They call it “absolute reliability”. I do not know how well it works yet, but it sounds like a great plan that will hopefully catch on. The competition between carriers has become so fierce that the formerly complacent shipping companies are willing to search out the most innovative ideas to give themselves an edge. They try to find an edge besides providing international cheap shipping. This is a great thing for the shipping industry and a great thing for its customers.
