No instant quotes and only a few, expensive offers were received from freight forwarders for shipper owned containers (SOC), says a first-of-its-kind report
For 10 weeks, Container xChange tested the world’s largest freight forwarders by setting up two test companies to see if they could handle SOC requests for its first SOC container mystery shopper report. Its Containers 2020 industry benchmark report looked at the 50 biggest freight forwarders.
In a snapshot of some of its results, it found:
The reports said SOC containers are the fastest growing container market segment with a CAGR (2014-19) of 15.84% and account for US$11Bn of annual carrier revenue. However, due to difficulties in handling SOC shipments operationally, only 18% of the 50 largest freight forwarders have been able to offer SOC containers, said Container xChange’s report.
It added “Although SOC containers increase operational flexibility and avoid demurrage and detention charges, operations teams seem to struggle to offer SOC shipments because they require a lot of manual effort in handling.”