7 Ways Your Business Can Benefit From Using Shipping Containers

One of the most important challenges faced by a business, especially a trading business, is the ability to deliver their goods or products to their buyers in good condition at the least cost and within the shortest time possible. Essentially, businesses have to bring their products to their buyers’ doorsteps in the condition in which they appeared to be or as they were described when they were bought.

To be able to do this, businesses have had to make sure their products are shipped, transported, and delivered in packages that can protect them from damage. As a solution, most trading firms, especially those involved in international trading, buy shipping containers so they’re able to transport, ship, and deliver their products.

Seven Benefits of Container Shipping

If you have a trading, e-commerce, or online selling business, and you’re doing international shipping, you can gain a lot of advantages from the use of containers. To give you some ideas, here are some benefits that your business can get from the use of shipping containers:

• Optimized Shipping Space

One of the things that’s hard to visualize when you ship your goods for delivery to another place or even another country is exactly how much space your cargo will take up. Sometimes, you have very little cargo, so you don’t know how they’ll mix your goods with others to fit in a container. At other times, you have too much cargo to fit in one container, while the rest would have to be lumped with other goods in a separate container.

However, if you have your own shipping containers, you can benefit by being able to plan how to pack your goods. You’ll also be able to load your cargo in such a way that would optimize the container space. 

• Properly Set Delivery Expectations

If you’re able to plan and schedule the packing and loading of your cargo in a way that optimizes container space, you’ll also be able to properly set customer expectations. For one, you’ll be able to tell your customers when they’ll receive their orders in a more predictable manner. This is a huge benefit since online shoppers would have a more positive perception of your company’s capability to deliver its promises.

• Optimize Shipping Cost

Another offshoot of your capability to plan and schedule the packing and loading of your cargo in a more optimal way is that you’ll be able to optimize shipping costs. 

For instance, since you can fit packages to optimize the container space group, like grouping cargos that have similar delivery dates, you’ll be able to ship more. When you optimize container space, you’ll bring down your shipping costs. You’ll also lessen the frequency for special deliveries or special packages that are usually charged higher delivery and handling fees by freight forwarders.

• More Efficient Clearing Time

One of the things that cargos go through that common folks no longer see is all the inspection and clearing by border control administration and customs offices. From the day the cargo is picked up, it has to go through export clearance at the customs office of the supplier’s country and port of origin. 

Sometimes, it goes through a separate process of inspection and clearing at the docks before they’re loaded to the cargo shipping vessel. Upon arriving at the port of destination, the cargo is unloaded and has to go through another set of inspections and clearing. 

With shipping containers, the cargo doesn’t have to go through a lot of inspection and clearing. This is because a shipping container already documents all the goods that it carries to a specific location. This makes it easier for customs officials to identify and track the shipping container. It also enables the freight forwarders to quickly transport the cargo to its destination.

• Savings On Insurance Premiums

Transporting cargo involves a lot of risks, especially when the cargo has to be shipped by sea, there’s always that risk that the cargo might get lost, stolen, or damaged. Transporting cargo involves a lot of risk. Especially when the cargo has to be shipped by sea across oceans from one part of the world to another country in another continent, there’s always that risk that the cargo might get lost, stolen, or damaged.

To protect shippers from the cost of loss, insurers offer marine cargo insurance for shippers. But insurance costs for small packages and special deliveries are usually more expensive.

It’ll be cheaper if you ship by containers, too, as most marine cargo insurance providers charge less when you ship by containers. The net benefit is that you save on premiums and other insurance handling fees charged by marine cargo insurance.

• Better Cargo Protection

Another benefit you can get from the use of shipping containers is that your products and goods will be better protected from the risk of potential damage. 

When products that aren’t properly packaged are shipped, they can get damaged while in transit. When they reach their consignees or destinations, the packages could already be severely damaged. This is a common customer experience shared by many online shoppers. Some were crushed by the loading crane or forklift. Others were shredded into pieces almost beyond recognition. 

With the use of shipping containers, your packages won’t have to be needlessly transferred from one container to the other.

• Resistance And Flexibility

Shipping containers are very sturdy and strong. They can withstand the pressure of loading and lifting cranes, as well as the handling of forklifts. They’re also made of metal, which makes them more resistant to various weather conditions. Especially when transporting by sea, the saltwater in the air can have an impact on the products and goods if not properly packaged or sealed. With shipping containers, this effect is mitigated because the shipping containers shield the goods.

Shipping containers are also very flexible. You can choose from a variety of sizes according to your business and shipping requirements. You can even ask to have them customized according to the requirements or dimensions of the goods that you ship.

Takeaway: Containing Your Shipping Costs

There are a number of ways that your business can benefit from the use of shipping containers. Overall, your main benefit would be more optimized logistics operations and management of cargo packing, loading, transporting, shipping, unloading, forwarding, and delivery.

You can turn this advantage into a better customer experience as you can now give them an awesome buying experience–from ordering, shipping, up to the time they receive their package up to the time they receive their package.