Choo Choo...

Freight Forwarding

You are on this side of the ocean and your Open Source Hardware project is manufactured on the other side of the ocean. For a minimal amount of product, UPS/FedEx is ideal but you are now at the stage where you are manufacturing hundreds or thousands of product. How do you get it to market on this side of the world?

Freight forwarders are the ones who step up to the plate and help get your great invention to market.

A freight forwarder (aka forwarder or forwarding agent) is a person or company that organizes shipments to get large orders from the manufacturer to market. Forwarders will contract with a carrier to facilitate the movement of product. A freight forwarder is not typically a carrier but is an expert in supply chain management. Looked at in a different way, a freight forwarder is a "travel agent" for the cargo industry or a third-party (non-asset-based) logistics provider. A forwarder will contract with asset-based carriers to move cargo. The cargo can be moved by ship, plane, trucks and/or railroads. Cargo normally moves along via a combination of them.

Boiling that down to plain English:
The freight forwarder can ship:
- by air (fast and expensive)
- by boat (slow and cheaper)
- deals with custom issues

There are multiple freight forwarders out there and a good Google search will get them for you. Here are some reputable companies that do a good job of moving the goods from Asia to Canada.

Freight Net    (Freight Net. You can select different geographic regions with lots of selection within)

Eztrans Logistics (Mississauga Ontario)
Fast Freight Forwarding (Toronto Ontario)
Continental Connections (Mississauga Ontario)
Global PackNShip (Surrey BC)

Once you have your Open Source Hardware invention, do what you do best, keep inventing. Let someone else take care of the details who specialize in this. Your time is more valuable. Let the "travel agent" deal with this journey.

Happy inventing!