The smart way to purchase from multiple suppliers: combine purchase orders from different vendors or locations into a single shipment to control the fixed costs that pile up with every new consignment.
Each time a new cargo shipment is created, fixed costs need to be factored in — and that becomes even more exasperating when international shipments are involved. What if there were a way to combine several purchase orders, even from different suppliers or locations, under the same shipment mode to control those fixed costs?
If you are a foreign buyer purchasing from several US suppliers or supplier locations within the US, it is worth looking at purchasing on a routed-transaction basis, using FCA or specific EXW Incoterms under which a foreign principal-agent handles all logistics to a specified delivery location.
Perhaps the greatest benefit of shipping FCA or EXW is the buyer's ability to consolidate smaller shipments into one air shipment that would otherwise have gone individually via FedEx, UPS, TNT, or DHL from the US suppliers. This can literally save thousands compared with costly, individually expedited shipments. And if the buyer is only purchasing a few pallets, there is the opportunity to marry up individual shipments that would have moved LCL into a single container load. The economies of scale always favor building containers over shipping individual LCL consignments.
The dollar tab climbs every time a new shipment is created. By combining individual shipments, you incur the fixed documentation and processing costs of only ONE shipment.
Talk with H.C. Bennett about how this applies to your import or export operation.