With each new technological advancement, the global markets become more intertwined. International shipping allowed global corporations to diversify holdings and source components from one country, assemble products in another, and sell items in a third. Online shopping has increased the interconnectivity of global economies by allowing individuals to purchase items from nearly anywhere, as long as they pay for shipping. So, how do goods go from manufacturers in one country to end consumers on the other side of the world in days? The answers lie in global supply chains and the logistics of international shipping.

Global Supply Chains

Sourcing goods and materials worldwide is easier now than ever before in history, even with all of the international laws and regulations surrounding imports and exports. This ease is because of how strong global supply chains can be with the right transportation management system to streamline communication and tracking between business partners in your chain. Many manufacturers and retailers will have multiple business partners for sourcing materials and transporting them at different journey stages. This diversification of partners can help keep the flow of goods steady when seasonal weather or natural disasters disrupt logistics in one part of the world.

Ports and Customs

More goods are transported by sea than by any other method, meaning that the items you buy or sell will have passed through ports and customs at some point in the supply chain. Major seaports in every country have crews working around the clock to offload cargo ships as they come in and load them up with more items to move. Shipping containers full of raw materials, fresh produce or items packaged for retail stores are lifted from cargo ships by cranes and stored at the ports until the cargo has passed through customs. The containers are lifted onto trailers or rail cars for the next leg of the journey. Cargo container ships can carry tens of thousands of containers at a time. Each year, they will make multiple trips through shipping lanes, representing billions of metric tons of goods transported globally.

National Logistics

For logistics inside a country, from a port to an inland processing plant or retailer, for example,

most goods transportation is done by semi-trucks and cargo trailers. Sometimes the shipping containers are moved from the port to an inland distribution center by rail, but more locations are accessible by roadway than railway in modern times. Using national logistics in your business model means partnering with national logistics companies and long-haul truckers to drive cargo thousands of miles at a time. Smaller shipments, or lighter-weight ones, are also shipped by air within and between countries, allowing orders to arrive in a fraction of the time. Innovations in trucking hubs and self-driving AI technology promise to revolutionize national logistics by allowing truck drivers more safety and shorter trips, thereby increasing the number of loads moved each year.

Local Delivery

Trucking companies handle logistics concerns once goods reach a local distribution hub or warehouse. Larger loads will use semi-trucks with differing sizes and numbers of trailers, while smaller ones will be transported by box truck or delivery vans. It is more cost-effective for most retailers to contract longer trips with trucking companies offering deals for less than truckload orders and sharing trailer space with neighboring businesses or multiple franchise locations. Shipping and delivery companies will often contract out truck space with local businesses to bring smaller cargo loads to a retail store while delivering packages to other locations on the same route.

Having options for the transportation of goods on the global, national and local scale has led to more interconnected trade and supply chains, with the globalization of the markets and e-commerce leading the way. The more robust your system for managing transportation and logistics for your company, the easier it is to streamline shipping and communications between business partners to quickly and effectively get your supplies to you and your finished goods to your customers.