In an industry where transparency is hard to find, and reliability is lost amidst price wars, Shipwaves puts these two values at the heart of its operations.
Let me explain how we create value for our shippers, every step of the way, by taking you through the journey of a shipment at Shipwaves.
- Planning phase — the beginning
When shippers plan to book freight, they are mostly looking for shipping lines that allow their cargo to reach in the shortest time, and at the lowest cost. The norm is to talk to multiple forwarders and brokers to get the best option. After tons of emails and phone calls, shippers compile all the information (forwarders, carriers, ocean freight, origin charges, transit time, etc) in a spreadsheet for comparison.
Here’s how we make the shipper’s life easy.
As a shipper, you are presented with an easy-to-use interface, on which you can search freight by origin, destination and container type. The detailed freight results are instantly displayed in an easily comparable format. Behind the scenes, we negotiate hard with shipping lines to get the best prices* out to you, in addition to charges for customs clearance, land transportation, cargo insurance and more from vetted service providers. What you get through our partnerships with leading shipping lines and NVOCCs, is an access to a global network of providers.
* Although it’s totally possible that you may not always find the lowest rate with us (as this is often a function of volumes on a specific route), what we do offer is the ability to re-negotiate for a better freight. Alternatively, if you have an existing contract with a shipping line, you could still work with us — we take care of moving your cargo on your preferred shipping line as our own booking.
2. Planning phase — tactical recommendations
We have some of the most experienced logistics experts in the industry manning each of our verticals. When you join Shipwaves, you are assigned a dedicated expert, who coordinates all aspects of your shipment, 24x7.
Be it ocean freight, air freight, or industry-specific requirements like reefers, project cargo, hazardous cargo, or even over-dimensional cargo — Shipwaves logistics experts have decades of experience in executing different kinds of shipments. Our team provides regular tactical recommendations on various parameters like port congestion, port regulations, alternate routing, trans-shipment port avoidance and even suggests on what day to dock the cargo in the port based on their local knowledge. Here’s an example of a conversation between a shipper and Shipwaves’ expert.
3. Booking
We go ahead and place the booking via our system to the shipping line, after you are comfortable with the transit time and other terms of the shipping line. (Generally repeat bookings are a lot faster and smoother, as we would have understood your requirements, and would have set everything in place for you).
We alert our other partners through our system to get themselves prepared for other services like warehousing, custom clearance, transportation, insurance etc. In fact we have a partner mobile app to ensure our partners are informed well in advance and the cargo is tracked from pickup to delivery. More on that later.
4. During the transit— Documentation
Right after you book and prepare your cargo, the documentation process starts. The standard procedure is to send all docs over emails, and back and forth for verifications, approvals, etc.
With Shipwaves, you get the control in your own personalized dashboard to upload documents, and edit the information for shipping instructions. Some of the information is pre-filled for you, as we would have the basic details (and for repeat shipments, it’s a breeze). Once it’s all filled up, you can verify and submit the page for us to transmit that information to the shipping lines.
5. During the transit — Monitoring your freight
You can also monitor your shipment’s status in real-time on your Shipwaves dashboard. Get real-time activity updates about when the cargo is received (you’ll also be notified about the truck’s weight), gated in, cleared, and on-boarded. You can also choose how often you want to receive these updates on your email (real-time or daily summary).
Our advanced real-time tracking system collects information from various sources — ports, shipping lines, satellite, our in-land partners, and our internal systems aggregate this into a single view for you. You can even check when the empty container has been returned to the yard after delivering goods to the consignee. (Fully transparent, no more conflicts over unnecessary detention charges, etc).
In addition, you receive powerful timely alerts about delays, discharges, rollovers & unusual waiting times.
6. Payments (Quotes, Invoices, Payment Status)
We take transparency and accountability, very seriously throughout the lifecycle of the shipment. We have one big poster in our office — “The keys to brand success are self-definition, transparency, authenticity and accountability”.
And our CEO, Capt. Vikram Mathur always says, “if we need to charge our customer for a certain value added service, state it upfront before securing the business”.
The quotes we present to you upfront are detailed and completely transparent. Take a look below.
Once the shipment is complete, you will automatically receive a system-generated online invoice based on the freight quote sent to you (no more manual accounting errors, and unnecessary hidden charges). The invoice too is detailed and itemized, just like the quote. You can view all of this in your dashboard at anytime, for any shipment.
When a payment gets through, an automatic update is triggered. So the payment status you see is always the most recent one, right within your dashboard.
We would love to plan your next shipment. Send us your enquiry at sales@shipwaves.com or call us at 1800 103 8643. Or visit us www.shipwaves.com.
