Transport by sea containers – everything you need to know about it

If we run our own trading company, it is natural that we want to constantly develop it. Along with this, the demand for the products offered by it usually grows. It is often the case that the production of items that we manufacture and sell is transferred outside our country, to a country where it is cheaper. It also happens that we do not produce the items we sell, but only import them directly from the producers and then sell them. In each of these cases, when it becomes necessary to transport a large amount of goods on a regular basis, it is natural that we start looking for cheaper ways to transport such goods. Then we should be interested in something like sea containers,

What are the other advantages of this and how much will we pay to transport our goods? We are going to focus on describing this in this article.

Sea containers – transport and its main advantages

If sea containers and transport via them is something that could potentially interest us (due to running a company that often uses importing products from outside the country in which it operates), it is worth being aware of all the advantages that flow with it. The most important ones include:

• no weight limits – although weight has an impact on the cost of the entire transport (see the paragraph below), it is actually unlimited; therefore, there is nothing to prevent the transport of very heavy goods, which would therefore be impossible to transport by any other means of transport;
• no quantitative limits – it does not matter how many items will be in the container that we want to transport; this is of great importance especially when we sell the so-called “general cargo”, i.e. small-sized items that can be put in a lot in one container (it is even recommended to fully equip the space that we will have);
• one cost of transport – regardless of how many items will be inside our container, we will pay for the transport only once (although the cost will depend on many factors, most of which are listed below) – it is very convenient, especially when we transport things in this way regularly;
• timely delivery – although sea transport can last and is certainly slower than other forms of it, it is very rare that it does not arrive on time;
• flexibility in terms of transported items – our container can contain both many small items and a few larger ones – but nothing prevents you from placing items of different dimensions and different weights there; here it depends on us how we use the space we have purchased;
• the possibility of partial refund – if we are not able to use the full space offered by our container, we can offer part of the space in it to a friendly company or private person who just wants to transport something from the country from which the container is leaving; it is practiced quite often and willingly used by both parties to this type of transaction.

In all this, it should be remembered that the shipment is transported “from port to port”. We can distribute it immediately, or we can transport the entire contents of the container to our warehouse beforehand.

Factors influencing the cost of transport by sea containers

As for the exact cost of using sea containers, the transport with which has many of the advantages we have already mentioned, it is not easy to determine, mainly due to the fact that it depends on many different factors. The basic one is the weight of the entire container – although it is practically unlimited, it has a significant impact on the price of the entire transport service. The final cost also includes the content itself, but also whether we want to insure the entire transport (it is recommended for very high-value shipments). The dimensions of the entire container are also important in all of this – depending on our needs, we are able to choose containers of various sizes, with the ones with a length of 20 and 40 feet being the most popular choice.

Summary

Although it is difficult to determine the price that accompanies sea containers, transport is always something profitable – provided that our transport needs (whether quantitative or dimensional) are sufficiently high and allow for its full use. It is worth considering it as an option of cheap and quick transport not only of many smaller items, but also of a few with larger than standard dimensions. Especially that in the case of the latter, this transport is the only available option (others are not able to meet the enormous dimensions).