LCL Emergency Surcharge Change

In our pricing communication dated August 12th, we raised our standard LCL rates to reflect

a previous general price increase from the shipping lines, and lowered our emergency surcharge rates.  We have been notified by the shipping lines that there will be additional increases in freight rates and emergency charges.  As a result, we have decided not to increase our basic rates again, hoping that these prices will be reduced at some point in the future. Instead, we have decided to change the emergency charges from the $1 -> $2 price range to ~$2 -> $5 price range.  

The emergency charges are a pass through from the freight providers; what we pay, you pay.

Certain routes have seen larger price increases than others. For example, our German and Austrian LCL routes will see charges towards the high end of that range.  Shipments to Seattle will also experience increases on the higher end; Seattle port is congested and running at capacity.   

Below, we have included two charts.  The first shows a relatively stable freight charge environment lasting ~5 years, with a big uptick starting in mid 2020.  The second chart shows additional detail for the last two years.

While it is difficult to give exact prices, due to varying emergency charges by shipping line,

ports and truckers, we have done our best to provide guidelines, see below.

Revised Pricing Examples:

East Coast

• Per case LCL charge, (level 3 France -> East Coast) $17.78 a case + ~$1.70 per case emergency charges = ~$19.48

West Coast (Oakland)

• Per case LCL charge, (level 3 France -> West Coast) $18.01 a case + $2.85 per case emergency charge= ~$20.86

FCL’s are priced on a custom basis and will include similar changes at time of invoice

Effective date

The revised emergency charges will start to show up on shipments arriving from late October onwards.