• Why Marking or Labelling Your Freight is Important

    Posted on August 18, 2018 by in Cargo services, Cargo to Lagos, Freight Forwarder, Shipping to Nigeria from London, Shipping to Nigeria from UK

    Just about putting some markings on the freight to be sent to Nigeria can help save the day for both the freight forwaders and customers alike. There are over hundred occasions when some cargoes arrived at our warehouse with no single marking or labeling to indicate who the owner is.  Imagine a freight arrived from Portsmouth or Milton Keynes out of twenty bags only five has a marking on them, how do we then figure out who the owner is ? The most challenging one in the course of our over ten  years experience in this field of our shipping to Nigeria is having a bag or boxes with no name written anywhere on the bag . As a shipper you find yourself in a situation of the devil and the deep blue sea , especially when the customers in question have traveled abroad and they didn’t provide you with any means of contacting them.

    Bags without Marking

    Bags without Marking

    Various Ways to Mark Shipment to be Sent to Nigeria

    Depending on what the cargo is and where the cargo destination in Nigeria is.  Fragile items need not only carry the sender’s name but it is also a rule of thump that the freight carries  a “Fragile ”  sign if the content of a box or a bag is fragile. Why is this important? We need to pin point on some behind the scene activities in the cargo world. For the essence of space and safety arrival of freight at destination, it is a compliance practice that cargo is consolidated together and put onto a wooden pallet.  What is a pallet by the way ? In case you don’t know ,  See the picture

    Cargo on Pallet

    Cargo on Pallet

    As mentioned above earlier, the wooden object above this text is what is called a “wooden pallet” . This is where every boxes or bags of freight is strapped unto by freight forwarder for onward shipment to Nigeria or other destination as the case may be.  As with customers, paying for freight is a hard nut to crack let alone telling a customer that an additional 10 to 15 kilogram will be added to the weight of their cargo due to extra weight of a pallet.  Customers hate to hear this overly increase weight of the pallet , they dread it so much! Even though customers hate to hear this, pallet is very instrumental to the safety arrival of freight to their destinations. Due to unhealthy argument historically brought about by pallet , freight forwaders  are clever enough to put or consolidate freight belonging to  ten or more customers with shipment load of 20 to 30kg each on a 15 to 20 kg pallet. Say for argument sake, after final strapping of freight to a  pallet one is looking at a cargo load of about 400kg or more of freight ready to be flown to Nigeria. Imagine, if a good 400 odd kilogram of  paletized weight sat on a box or bag of 10kg containing a bleach or fruit juice packed together  in one jiffy bag? There is no question , the stuff in that bag or box will be in a shamble if not completely destroyed.

    Marking shipment with Name of Sender

    It is somewhat controversial  whether to write the sender’s name or receiver’s name on a shipment . We at Cargotonigeria.com always opt for the former as supposed writing the receiver’s name on the item of shipment. The reason attached to this is simple. At the initial first phone or email contact from a first time customer, they mention their names and this  is logged on the system or history of their contact with us. Should such customer decide to use our service, we know them more and not the receiver of the shipment in Nigeria. More so, writing your name as the sender also make us to easily identify your luggage  amidst other customers freight. But on the contrary where the name of recipient in Nigeria is written on the bag or box, obviously it will be practically difficult to identify the bag with the owner in some circumstances.  So to put things at ease for both parties, it is logically right for a shipment to be marked with sender’s name and not the receiver’s name. As our practice, we only the receiver details to be emailed to us rather than writing it on the shipment.