Are you looking to transport goods around the UK and Europe? If so, road freight might be the best option for you. With a number of solutions available, including pallet and out-of-gauge equipment, read on to find out the most appropriate shipments for road freight.

Groupage

This type of shipping involves grouping your goods together with other similar items that are travelling to the same place. Often the cheapest and most efficient way to transport goods in the UK, it’s also known as consolidation of freight. If you can’t make up a full container, you simply need to ask your freight forwarding company to send your shipment via groupage shipping.

Full load road freight

Essentially the opposite of groupage, full load road freight is a type of shipping that sees a truck carry just one dedicated container. If you have a shipment that is large enough to fill a single container, this option is usually cheaper. With full loads, you will also find you aren’t as restricted when it comes to the size and weight of the shipment.

Dedicated

The best option for time restricted transport and valuable shipments, dedicated road freight ensures the same driver and truck is used throughout, making the whole process more secure. The driver is also reachable during the journey. Although similar to full load road freight, the main difference is that full load allows for different trucks and drivers to handle sections of the delivery.

Contact Independent Freight today to learn more about their road freight solutions. As well as road freight, we offer sea freight and air freight services to destinations around the world.

The answer is normally you as the importer of record.

Unfortunately, some customers often assume wrongly that their supplier is responsible for ensuring the correct HS code is declared at import and that the Freight Forwarder/Customs Broker should then use this information to clear the goods. Although the supplier may play an important role in helping to determine the correct code and as the freight forwarder we will always check this to see if it looks incorrect – it can be quite dangerous to assume that your supplier is using the correct code.

HS Codes are grouped into 97 “product” chapters and the commodity code that relates to your imported goods determines the following:

• The rate of import duty and VAT to be paid
• Information for trade statistics
• import restrictions on the goods
• preferential trade agreement
• Whether there are any trade policy measures affecting the import of the goods, e.g. ADD, Tariff Quotas (TQ), etc.

Each product has its own unique tariff code and this is harmonised throughout the world, however, only the first 6 digits of the code are actually ‘harmonised’. The last 4 digits will be unique to each country or in our case currently the EU. Therefore we will often find that a supplier will use their 10 digit code on the paperwork especially on shipments imported from the USA which might be different to the 10 digit code used in the EU/UK Tariff. This can lead to goods being incorrectly classified.

Therefore we recommend that customers carry out a regular review of the codes they are using at import and have some kind of system to indicate how they have arrived at these codes as HMRC will want to see evidence should they carry out and Customs Audit.

As a valued customer of ours, we are always happy to help you check your codes and to ensure that these are communicated to us correctly.

If you would like to discuss your codes with us then please do not hesitate to contact us as this will become even more important in the future post Brexit regardless of what Brexit actually looks like!

For more information on this please do not hesitate to contact us on 02476 343037.

When focusing on the small details of freight shipping, it can be easy to sometimes forget about upcoming international holidays that can affect your supply chain. A reliable freight forwarding company should be aware of the below holidays and how/if they will affect the freight services they can provide.

1. Labour day

Labour day is a holiday celebrated by many international countries including America, Slovenia, Russia and Switzerland. The exact date of the holiday differs between countries, in America, it takes place on the first day of September while for the majority of European counties, such as Slovenia, the holiday takes place on the 1st and 2nd of May.

2. Summer bank holidays

Freight shipping usually peaks during mid-August to mid-October and during this time the demand for shipping is incredibly high as consumers prepare for their summer holidays and begin Christmas shopping. August 28th is a bank holiday in both Canada and the UK and must be remembered when organising freight shipping during this busy period.

3. Independence days

If you are not a resident of a country it can be hard to remember when or if it has an independence day. For example, the 4th of July weekend in the United States is a big independence day holiday and could cause delays in a supply chain, other large independence day holidays include the Indian independence day on August 1st, Chinese independence day on October 1st and June 12th for the Philippines independence day.

To avoid such holiday days affecting your supply chains, it is important to work with a knowledgeable and expert freight forwarding company like Independent Freight. For more information on freight services, contact a member of Independent Freight now!