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Freight forwarding entry must understand container knowledge

Apr 11, 2024|View:12

In the past few years, the container market has experienced great ups and downs from "hard to find a container" to "empty container stacking port". Since 2024. China's export of newly built containers is ushering in a substantial growth. It IS UNDERSTOOD THAT in the first 2 months OF this year, OUR COUNTRY exported all kinds of CONTAINERS totaling 12.636 billion yuan, an increase of 87.6% over the same period last year.

Container, is the main means of transportation by sea, often do import and export trade friends to it must be very familiar with, freight forwarders let alone, almost every day to deal with containers. Today I sorted out the basic knowledge about containers. If you just need it, I strongly suggest you collect this article of pure dry goods

Introduction to Container

container refers to a large container with a certain strength, stiffness and specifications for turnover. The English name is container, and it is often called "container". Freight forwarders help customers do import and export sea freight, which is to transport customers' goods from one port to another port through containers or other carriers, and finally deliver them to the consigner.

Common containers are as follows:

DRY CONTAINER (DC or GP) : it is the most common common container. Except for frozen goods, live animals and plants, dry container can be used for all the goods suitable for container transportation in terms of size and weight.

REEFER CONTAINER (RF, HR) : There are requirements on the temperature of goods, such as fresh goods and some goods that need constant temperature.

OPEN TOP box (OT) : The open top box can be loaded with goods from the top, especially suitable for oversized goods such as machinery. The open top box is equipped with a PVC tarp cover and a removable frame with a cable sealing device, and the open top box door can be removed for easy packing.

FLAT RACK (FR) : A flat rack is designed for heavier goods that need to be packed from the top or sides, such as pipes and machinery.

HANGER CONTAINER (HT) : Customers can choose to hang clothes with rope or stick or both. Such containers have high flexibility, large internal capacity, and can save transportation and handling costs.

TANKER CONTAINER: a container mainly composed of liquid tanks and frames, which is used to ship liquid goods such as liquor, oil, liquid food and chemical drugs.

Common container specifications

20GP: inner diameter 5.898×2.352×2.385 meters, gross distribution weight 17.5 tons, volume 28-31 cubic meters.

40GP: inner diameter 12.032×2.352×2.385 meters, gross distribution weight 22 tons, volume 54-64 cubic meters.

40HQ: inner diameter 12.032×2.352×2.69 meters, gross distribution weight 22 tons, volume 68-74 cubic meters.

45HQ: internal diameter 13.556×2.352×2.698 meters, gross distribution weight 26 tons, volume 78-86 cubic meters.

Note: The size and weight limit of each shipping company are slightly different, according to the actual situation or confirm with the shipping company separately.

Top Tips:

1. The content volume of a container refers to the loading volume calculated according to the internal dimensions of the container. Containers of the same specification, due to the different structure and manufacturing materials, the content will be slightly different;

2. Due to the different loading experience of stowaway personnel and the stowaway factor of goods, the content volume of containers often cannot achieve 100% utilization rate, and the general average utilization rate can reach about 85%. So freight forwarding friends in the process of talking about business, if the customer asked about the contents of the container, do not use the theoretical volume calculated to promise the customer how many goods can be loaded.

According to experience, a 20-foot container can generally hold 24-26 square meters of goods, and the space can be well used to hold about 28 square meters. A 40-foot container can generally fit to about 54 cubic meters, and a 40-foot high container can fit to about 68 cubic meters.

3. About the weight limit, on the door of each container, there is the container's tare weight, maximum bearing capacity and other information. It should be noted that when doing business, it is often not possible to load according to the maximum bearing weight on the door.

Because the shipping company or the terminal also have certain requirements on the gross weight of the container, if the customer's cargo is heavy, then the maximum weight limit must be confirmed with the shipping company before booking the space, if it is overweight, there may be overweight charge. In addition, different shipping companies have different requirements for weight limit. Forwarders can choose shipowners according to the actual situation of customers' goods.

4. Frame boxes are generally used to ship oversized goods and large goods, so there is no fixed volume and weight limit. In practice, we must let customers provide accurate size and weight of goods, and find the shipover to confirm whether they can be shipped with frame boxes.

5. the top of the open top box is open, suitable for loading ultra-high goods, with the help of the crane on the top of the container packing. There are some not super high goods, for the convenience of packing can also use open top box.

Container mark code and name plate

There will be a lot of important information on the door of the container, which is often used by the freight forwarder in the process of doing business, including the box number, box size and box type code, maximum total weight, box weight, net load, box volume and safety convention nameplate, etc.

Can't tell the difference between a COC box and a SOC box?

COC box

COC, full name Carrier's Own Container, refers to the container owned by the carrier. COC space means that the shipping company should not only give the shipper space, but also equip the shipper with containers. The shipper takes the Shipping Order to the corresponding terminal yard to pick up the empty container, and then the goods can be arranged for loading.

SOC box

Soc container is the owner's own container, which refers to the use of the owner's own containers for distribution and export. Generally, the customer wants to avoid the container cost caused by using the shipping company's containers, or wants to use their own containers for export, so as to obtain the container discount of the shipping company to reduce the cost. If the customer requires to export goods with SOC boxes, the forwarder needs to ask the customer to provide the photos of the box door, the name plate, the inside of the half-closed box, the overall appearance and the box certificate, etc., so as to avoid problems in booking space.