27) Why are there so many agents / parties involved in shipping my cargo?

To answer this question let’s break up your overseas shipment into 3 parts:

Origin Services: Packing, loading, palletizing/crating (LCL only) and storage (if required).

Door-to-Port Transportation: Trucking your container from the terminal to your home and then back to the port or to the warehouse (LCL), and ocean transportation.v

Destination Services: Customs clearance, storage (if required), trucking your container or shipment to your door, unpacking, and removal of debris.

Based on the above, depending on where you are moving from and to the following minimum services are required to ship your items from door-to-door.

• Labor for packing and loading
• Trucking from your origin city of residence to the nearest warehouse or port
• Warehouse facilities close to your city of residence at origin
• Ocean container
• Customs clearance at destination port
• Trucking from the destination port to your destination city of residence or nearest warehouse
• Warehouse facilities close to your city of residence at destination
• Labor for unpacking, unloading and debris removal

As you can see, it is not possible for any shipping company to have own/physical presence in all cities / countries of the world to provide these services. There are a few companies that have presence in the major cities/countries of the world but at the end of the day even they need to depend on carriers (steamship lines) for sourcing containers to transport your cargo. Agents play a key role in getting packing/transporting/clearing your shipment due to their local presence and expertise in local laws and demographics. We use only the very best agents in the world. Our memberships with the Household Goods Freight Forwarders Association of America (HHGFAA), British Association of Removers (BAR), Canadian Association of Movers (CAM) automatically give us access to quality accredited freight forwarders and clearing agents all working diligently to our shipments delivered on time, every time.