Category Archives: Logistics

Freightos: Still Flippin’ Freight Quotes Faster than a Fleet-Footed Feline on Guarana

When we last checked in on Freightos a year ago, they were serving up real-time freight quotes for global shipping and were just launching the marketplace where buyers could search by “lane”, see public freight quotes from shippers serving those “lanes”, compare them, and book quotes. (And a buyer can define a lane by zip code or city, and the software will automatically identify all relevant [air]ports.) Since then, the Freightos marketplace has been growing, and a few noticeable improvements have been made:

More, and bigger, carriers.

Now that big global companies have publicly announced their adoption of the platform — including Sysco, Marks & Spencer, and Panasonic US — bigger forwarders and carriers are signing up and there are a plethora of good, competitive, economical options for all major lanes between Asia and North America — which includes complete multi-modal options from just about any zip code to any zip code in the regions of interest (and almost all major ports and major distribution centers are covered).

More refined cost tracking and rate comparison. 

Upon launch, Freightos provided buying organizations the ability to upload all of their contracts and associated rates. The UI has been improved and it’s easy to compare the contract rate against the current market rate of a carrier as well as the market rates of other carriers side-by-side and to see the relative delivery times that correspond to the rates. (The models break down the cost and delivery time component of each leg of the journey. Truck to port, ocean or air cargo from port to port, truck to distribution center, etc.)

The detail provided on quote breakdown is incredible compared to most platforms that simply collect an all-in-one delivery free for each segment and the government tariff rate(s). If relevant, the platform will break out delivery fee (per unit), fuel surcharges, messenger charges, e-document charges (at origin and destination), lift gate charges, manifest system charges, customs charges, each export and import tariff, SOLAS administration fees, docking fees, temporary storage fees, freight station fees, pier pass fees, cleaning fes, chasis fees, handling fees, and local charges.

Immediate Online Payment with Booking

Since Freightos can now collect payment immediately upon booking through the marketplace, this provides two major advantages over the initial version of the platform where a buyer requested a quote, a supplier replied, and then a booking was made at a later time. The buyer gets the booking they need when they need it, no fear of the lowest cost or preferred carrier maxing their quota (and the option disappearing because someone else selects and pays first). Secondly, since all marketplace payments flow through the platform, Freightos is able to offer the service free for buyers and at a low cost to service providers, who pay a small transaction fee (which should cost them much less than it does to hire multiple sales people to respond to offline RFQs all day with the same quotes cut-and-pasted into multiple Excel sheets of various formats).

More Powerful and More Responsive Drill Down Filters

Not only can you select/deselect ports, modes, forwarders/carriers, intermediate routings, and intermediate ports/distribution centers, you can also include or exclude additional requirements such as lift gate, cross-docking, etc. in your search and comparison. The platform is effectively doing hundreds of searches across (potentially) thousands of carriers with dozens of options in real-time.

Streamlined Document Management

The platform can store, index, and cross reference all contracts and documents (such as insurance certificates, compliance certificates, etc.) related to all carriers used by an organization and they can be easily retrieved when a quote is accessed or easily managed through a carrier management interface.

A Full Featured API

You can include the power of their marketplace in your sourcing application. You don’t have to use their web-interface, you can embed the search functionality in any platform you are currently using to get worldwide shipping estimates and available carriers in real-time.

Freightos is getting very close to becoming the powerful freight management solution that will not only be Supply Management’s best friend but the default platform for all logistics tenders and spot buys performed by the organization. Stay tuned. We’re sure we will be hearing more from Freightos in 2017.

One Hundred and Twenty Eight Years Ago Today …

While Constantinople may have fell 563 years ago, it was remembered 128 years ago today in the The Convention of Constantinople which guaranteed free maritime passage through the Suez Canal during war and peace. Connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez, it provides seagoing vessels with a short route between the North Atlantic and North Indian oceans, reducing the journey (which used to go through the South Atlantic and South Indian oceans) by 7,000 kms. Without this treaty, global logistics could have been brought to a halt with canal blockage.

And LOLCats everywhere rejoiced!

Happy One Hundred and Thirty Second Birthday, Prime Meridian

Without you, we’d never know where zero longitude was, and that could make geolocation very difficult without a reference point.

… and the eastern border of the Texas panhandle with Oklahama would not be so easy to find … (look it up).

Historical fact, it took a whole International Meridian Conference, at the request of U.S. President Chester A. Arthur, to select this!

One Hundred and Eighty Seven Years Ago Today

Stephenson’s The Rocket wins The Rainhill Trials. An important competition in the early days of steam locomotive railways for the nearly completed Liverpool and Manchester Railway, The Rocket was the only locomotive to complete the trials and became the template for the railway.

The Rocket, which brought together several innovations to produce the most advanced locomotive of its day, was so revolutionary at the time it is now on display in the Science Museum of London. While not the first steam locomotive, it was the foundation for the steam locomotives that would become a major means of transport in the UK in the nineteenth century and should not be lost to the annals of history.


What do you think, LOLCat?


Choo! Choo!