T Ward helps Stretch Tent Scotland

Here at T Ward, we like to offer our clients a really thorough service that’s tailored to their needs. We’re also experienced in helping clients reach the best solution for difficult logistical problems, and we demonstrated this last year when we worked with a company called Stretch Tent Scotland. The company supplies tents for use at large events such as weddings and festivals, and asked us to assist with customs clearance when they imported a batch of the tents from suppliers in Cape Town. The first shipment was due in April/May 2014.

The company bought the tents on CIF Edinburgh Incoterms, which meant was the shippers in Cape Town organized the shipping up to the first port of entry to the UK, which was Felixstowe. We assisted with customs clearance at Felixstowe and delivery to Edinburgh.

The complication was that because the gods were bought on CIF terms, the client had no control over which warehouse was responsible for their LCL shipment on arrival in the UK. As a result, the common charges (handling, security, documentation) levied by the warehouse for an LCL import were non-negotiable and Stretch Tent Scotland had to pay in order to release their goods – an extra expense they weren’t expecting. The costs were high, too.

Although there was no way around this problem in 2014, we advised Stretch Tent Scotland that next time they imported goods from Cape Town, they should buy them on FOB Cape Town terms. This would mean that shippers in Cape Town would only be responsible for getting goods to our nominated agent’s warehouse in Cape Town. From there onwards, t.ward shipping would be able to take responsibility for the shipment up until it was delivered to the client’s premises in Edinburgh.

There were no nasty surprises with the next shipment as we could decide which UK warehouse the goods arrived into. This saved a few hundred pounds and led to a happy client. In summary, t.ward can assist with all shipping, import/export and customs matters, and we are able to use our many years shipping experience to tailor our services to fit clients’ precise needs, potentially saving them money and ensuring that they don’t need to pay over the odds for shipping costs.