Trade groupage feature

On the Europe Run

Trade groupage from the UK to Europe, and back, has been a competitive business since the EU opened up.  But one company, Matthew James from Erith, with its fleet of vehicles including the magnificent, award-winning road train driven by the company’s MD, Matt De-Machen, has been making a pretty good job of it. 

The company has had its own depot in Malaga for many years and recently opened new operating centres in Madrid and Barcelona.  The opening of the new operations is a reflection of the level of business to these key cities.

The financial difficulties in Spain have kept pressure on prices and margins but the company says that it is holding up nevertheless.  In fact the company has been able to introduce new services recently through the new operating centres in addition to its traditional route to Spain through France.  “We now offer weekly services to Gibraltar from our Malaga depot also Andorra and the Balearic islands from Barcelona,” said Matt.  “We are also moving further east and offer weekly services to Belgium and Luxembourg and expect to be putting on two-weekly services to Germany and Holland later in the year.”

Spain used to be one of the most difficult destinations to service but now the only problem is the cost.  It’s a long run to the south of Spain and it’s always a challenge to balance the cost to remain competitive. To improve efficiency, Matthew James works closely with an increasing number of Spanish companies that provide back loads to help fill up the road train.  “We back load from a multitude of Spanish companies already, and also from our own operating centres in Spain,” said Matt. “We are regularly oversubscribed for the return journey and find that these can sometimes dictate the flow of traffic.”

Despite the level of competition the company feels that maintaining a high quality service is key. “We can offer specific dates, storage, trans-shipping, permits, translation, etc. all in-house and this enables us to offer these services to the highest standards and at very competitive rates.”

E-mail european@matthewjamesremovals.com or call 0800 040 7907.

Money back guarantee for Anglo trade customers

Anglo Pacific has recently introduced a money back guarantee for its trade customers.  The guarantee will refund the entire groupage charges to any trade shipper if the shipment fails to arrive at its destination within the promised time.

Teresa Connolly is Anglo Pacific’s Trade Shipping Manager.  She explained the guarantee:  “In the unlikely event that the transit time from receipt of goods at our London depot to arrival at North American ports exceeds nine weeks, or 12 weeks for Australasian and other worldwide ports, we will commit to refunding all our groupage charges for receiving, handling and shipping plus customs clearance, delivery and unpacking. Naturally this guarantee will keep us on our toes but it sends out a strong message about Anglo Pacific’s confidence and commitment to deliver on time.”

Anglo Pacific is unable to guarantee the transit time through customs, however the money back guarantee applies to any late delivery excluding those subject to force majeure or any other circumstances beyond Anglo Pacific’s control.

For further information contact Teresa and her team on Freephone 0800 707 6093.

Groupage to China from Excess

Excess International Movers in London has introduced a new groupage service for loose-packed household removals to China.  The groupage service has been operational for some months now, but to date has carried only the company’s own baggage shipments. 

Managing Director Ian MacLeod said: “I had always been keen to start a groupage service to China, and realised that to get it off the ground, I would need the right people and contacts involved. The first step was to hire a Chinese Business Development Manager, which we successfully did when we took on Eva Chi who had experience in the field with another company.”  Ian explained that Eva spent her first few months setting up Excess’s Chinese baggage service, which involved a large degree of marketing, in particular aimed at the Chinese student market, the setting up of rate agreements with Chinese partners, and the development of Excess’s own Chinese Baggage Shipping website with instant online quotations for baggage shipments across the whole of China.

To get the service off the ground, the first consolidations were handled in China by a company specialising only in baggage shipments, but Ian realised that to service household removals requirements a quality Chinese removals partner was required. 

He chose Rex Service Company, a FIDI member based in Tianjin, services through the port of Xingang, the main port of entry for Beijing destined containers.  Rex Service has already successfully handled some baggage only consolidations.

“Rex Service are highly experienced in the complexities of Chinese Customs clearance,” said Eva.  “I speak to them nearly every day -  to Managing Director Richard Zhang, to Ella Wang who is Rex’s General Manager, and to our dedicated import co-ordinator Stacey Duan.  Although these conversations are held mainly in Chinese, I can assure our trade clients that they are all excellent English speakers too, and are ready to help and guide our English-speaking consignees with all aspects of their move when their shipments arrive in China.”

All of China can be reached through Excess International Mover’s new China removals groupage service, although at the moment instant rates are available only for some of the main cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Shenzen.  Rates to other cities will require an overnight rate check. 

To enquire about the service, the Excess International Movers’ trade team can be contacted on 020 8324 2044 or by e-mail to trade@excess-international.com.

Trade rates online 24/7 from John Mason

John Mason has been one of the UK’s leading trade groupage operators for many years.  Moving companies that do not have sufficient groupage traffic to load their own containers have relied on the Liverpool and London-based company to provide the shipping services they need. 

In our technology-driven world those shippers don’t need to rely on calling for rates or relying on increasingly bedraggled rate cards as they might have done in the past. Now  John Mason has its rates online so that trade customers can get real-time groupage rates at any time day or night.

“Trade movers can use the trade quote website as often as they want and whenever they want,” explained David Ozard, John Mason’s General Manager. “This is where they find our most economical rates. We are finding that a lot of movers are using it at the weekend and evenings. It’s user friendly so you don’t need any training to use it and you can get a rate instantly and users can also message us for rate requests for container rates and out-of-area requests. We find that our movers really appreciate the immediate response and it has a direct benefit to their business. It can really help clients to quickly respond to their customers with a quotation in real time.”

John Mason reports that in the last two years the company has seen significant growth and it has gained new clients.  “More and more companies are getting involved in International moving and they really appreciate the help that we can offer,” said David. We have increased our head count of staff in the Trade Shipping department significantly to service the needs of all our moving company friends. We have huge volumes for our current trade lanes which include Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA, South Africa and Cyprus. This means that we can get groupage containers away quickly which is a main priority for all of our clients, whilst still offering very affordable rates which, let’s be honest, we are all interested in.”

For log in details please contact david@johnmason.com.  For more information visit: www.jmitrade.com or call: 0800 023 7128.

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