Sea Transportation
Sea transport is considered a convenient form of international transport and was born very early in the West. To date, ocean freight is still the most commonly used form of international freight. However, how is the shipping process and shipping costs?
- What is sea freight?
Sea transport or sea transportation is a form of transportation of goods through the use of facilities and infrastructure to serve transportation activities. Depending on the route, type of goods, means of transport are boats and means of loading and unloading goods such as cranes… Infrastructure to serve sea transport includes seaports, transshipment port…
The form of sea transport is suitable for international or domestic trade shipments in areas near the sea and adjacent areas where ships dock. Because shipping vessels are often large in size and tonnage, usually the form of sea transport is widely applied to the import and export industry to carry large quantities of goods.
Vietnam is a country with a rather long coastline, so the form of sea transport is very developed and strongly invested by the state in facilities, means and infrastructure systems. Thereby promoting trade activities, import and export of domestic goods, a premise to help domestic logistics services develop strongly.
Features of the shipping industry
For the shipping industry, there are 3 issues to pay attention to: shipping method, volume and type of goods transported by sea. Specifically:
- Sea freight methodFreight by sea divided by modes of transport:
*Shipping by container ship, bulk ship
* Shipping by barge, ponton
Each method of international or domestic shipping by sea offers points to help transport packages of enormous volume and size at the same time.
In order to facilitate transportation activities to be carried out quickly and to optimize costs, goods will be combined with two or more modes of transportation. Sea freight has the ability to combine with the remaining modes: road transport, air transport, rail transport, or at the same time combine many of those modes of transport according to each appropriate situation.
- Volume of goods transported by sea
The volume of the goods affects the freight rate, the packaging process, the choice of shipping method. Therefore, when shipping internationally by sea, it is necessary to determine the weight and volume of the goods transported. The volume of goods is calculated according to the higher value.
Each shipping method has a different way of dividing the volume of goods, The way to divide and determine the volume of goods will be shown below:
– How to calculate the number of bales on the current container:
Quantity (container 20) = 28/bag volume (m3)
Quantity (container 40) = 60/bag volume (m3)
Quantity (40 tall container) = 60/bale volume (m3)
How to calculate bale volume: Bale volume(m) = Length x Width x Height
For example, your parcel has dimensions d:0.31, r:0.32, height: 0.55
Bale volume: 0.31 x 0.32 x 0.55 = 0.05456
– What items should you transport by sea?
There are many types of goods that can be transported by sea, each type of goods will be divided into groups so that the shipping unit has the most optimal shipping method. Specifically, groups of goods that can be used by sea transport are as follows:
Goods with physical and chemical properties such as: easy to absorb moisture, dangerous goods such as chemicals, solutions, volatile goods such as powders…;
Goods that are easily affected by the environment such as spices, tobacco, tea…;
Aviation is affected to other goods: construction materials, industrial materials, etc.
In addition, sea freight also divides goods according to the form of transportation:
- Shipping by container with general cargo mainly;
- Transport by barge for minerals, sand, stone…;
- Transport by refrigerated transport for featured items.
- Thus, from the advantages as well as the regulations on goods transported by sea transport, the sender has an additional option for efficient freight.
- How to calculate sea freightSea freight is the cost to transport goods from the sender’s address to the consignee’s address on a container or CMB.
Importantly, sea freight will not be the same. The basis of charge calculation will apply according to the principle of price comparison between volume and weight, whichever is larger. In addition, freight rates are not fixed, but there are differences between the distances of the routes, quantity, weight, shipping lines, and Forwarder.
Volume is in CBM and weight is in KGS. When making a comparison, the weight of the goods is weighed and the actual volume of the goods is measured, and then it decides to which value the goods are to be applied.
Specifically, how to calculate sea freight charges as follows:
- For FCL goods (full container goods)Fees for FCL goods are usually calculated on a container or Bill or shipment basis. Therefore, when calculating the fee for FCL goods, we calculate as follows:
With the costs calculated on the container, we take the freight rate x the number of containers
With the costs calculated on the Bill or on the shipment, we take the freight rate x the number of bills or the number of that shipment.
- For LCL (Retail) + The unit will calculate the freight based on two units: Actual weight of the shipment (weighed – unit: KGS)
Actual volume of the shipment (calculated by the formula: (length x width x height) x quantity – unit: CBM)
+ Then continue to go to the formula:
- 1 ton < 3 CBM: heavy goods, according to the price list KGS
- 1 ton >= 3CBM: light goods, applied according to the CBM price list
- For FCL goods (full container goods)Fees for FCL goods are usually calculated on a container or Bill or shipment basis. Therefore, when calculating the fee for FCL goods, we calculate as follows:
With the formula for calculating freight rates by sea that Lacco [LINK] shares, you can take the initiative from calculating and balancing freight rates in advance to predict transportation costs and also choose transport unit with the most suitable price.