Freight Forum Official Blog

Freight Forum August 2011 Newsletter

 Hello all!

Just a quick update. 4 of the 5 User Guides have been published already and are available for viewing now on Freight Forum. They include the following;

• Importer's Guide
• Exporter's Guide
• Freight Forwarder's Guide
• Ship Agent's Guide

There is one more guide yet to be published which is the "Ship Owner's Guide" which I expect to be up soon. Although considering most of us don't have our own cargo ship docked outside, I thought I would write that guide last :)

Freight Forum is becoming an increasingly large site so I decided to publish this set of guides to give everyone a quick look on how to use Freight Forum.

Freight Forum is looking to attract the following people to the site; importers, exporters, freight forwarder's, ship owners, ship agents/shipping line agents. Therefore we have created a guide for each of them so they can see how the site is relevant to them and how it can specifically help them in their business.

Wishing you all a prosperous day!

Anthony

Just a quick update. Freight Forum has a new homepage! It isn't linked on the top navigation bar either. The only way to reach it is by clicking on the Freight Forum logo, which conveniently is located on every single page :)

It's a super simple list of links (hopefully not too simple to the point its ugly). Really its just a sitemap to help you find your way around easily.

One point to note, the homepage will appear differently to members that are logged in as opposed to what visitors may see. When you are logged in you will see some extra links related to your account.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to make the homepage better, or any part of the site, let me know in the comments section of this post.

Have yourself a good day!

 Since we created the "Audited Freight Forwarders" pages last week and sent out an email about becoming an Audited Member we have had many new companies register in the Shipping Directory and around ten have also sent me their company's documents to become an Audited Member. Now, what do I mean by "company documents"?

First off, the requirements for being a freight forwarder or customs clearance broker is different in every country. Some countries actually don't need any special customs clearance license to do this business, just a business registration. Others need to be licensed customs clearance brokers in order to work in freight forwarding. So when I ask for company documents I am refering to your company's registration or a copy of the certificate showing which freight forwarding organization you are affiliated with.

One thing you will notice when using Freight Forum is the lack of fraud or cheaters using our website. Other B2B websites like Alibaba are full of fraudsters trying to trick you out of your money. Freight Forum also attracts these individuals which mostly originate from Nigeria and a few other African countries. When we have any doubt about them we email them directly and ask them to send us their company's registration papers and other relevant licenses for working in the supply chain industry in their country. 99% of the time we hear nothing back and they do not use Freight Forum anymore.

The goal of the Audited Members section is to create a network of trusted individuals. Being a freight forwarder in Shanghai, this is not only useful for me but for everyone else who visits the site and is in quick need of a trusted freight forwarder to handle their shipment. These companies can be accessed quickly through the "Agencies" drop down on the top navigation bar.

Lastly, I wanted to comment about an email I received where someone asked me if I had a "conflict of interest" running a B2B website and also being a freight forwarder at the same time. I believe there is no conflict of interest. First of all, anyone who is creating a website about logistics is also working in the same industry, otherwise we wouldn't have the knowledge to design the site or write content for it. Secondly, Freight Forum is a completely free and open communication portal. As a freight forwarder in Shanghai, my only real competitors are other freight forwarders in Shanghai and to a lesser degree other cities in China. But Freight Forum is also fully open to other Chinese forwarders. They can freely send quotes using our freight exchanges and those people requesting quotes will receive that quotation in their Freight Forum inbox as well as receive a notification email to their real email address which includes the full contents of the message. All members are allowed to include their contact details or email address inside their communications so they may also opt to communicate outside of Freight Forum using regular email or the telephone.

I hope this post cleared some things up and remember to have a great day!

Please bear with us as Freight Forum makes the transition into a social network for the supply chain community. The old features of Freight Forum will still all be there for you to use. But over the next week the site will be further integrated into the existing social network. Currently Freight Forum is using two different messaging forms on the site and there is actually two different inboxes as well. One on the top navigation bar, and one built into the social network.

Freight Forum is now going to begin using the social network's messaging form across all pages. Furthermore, not matter if you send or receive freight quotes, a message on the shipping directory, or any other form of communication on the site, all the messages will be centralized inside your personal inbox.

As there may be some technical difficulties with the current messaging system over the next week, I suggest when members contact eachother on the site now to simply leave your email address at the bottom of the message. When messages are sent on Freight Forum there is also a notification sent to that person's real email. When we send these notifications there is also a copy of the message there. So if you have provided your email address in the initial message they will simply be able to contact you directly, without the need to login to Freight Forum again.

Thanks everyone for your patience during this transition time!

Anthony