Freight forwarders barely respond to SOC quote requests

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:

• Responsiveness: “Instant quoting is apparently still not the norm,” said a Container xChange spokesperson. It received no offers within the first two days, followed up two-three times and still only received 25 replies (50%).
• High risk with hidden demurrage and detention: 25% of companies replied to the company with a quote and said, “Yes, we can help you”.
  “But after taking a closer look at the quotes, we saw that three out of four quotes were not even for SOC shipments and included demurrage and detention charges,” the report said.
• A few, expensive offers: Three companies could offer SOC shipments, five companies offered containers for purchase or lease, and one company offered SOC shipments on the condition Container xChange’s mystery shopper provided its own containers.

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.”