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What is the fastest way to get empty boxes back into the box-making area?
What is a container free period?
When you rent a container, you get a period of free use without having to pay rent. This is the container free period. How long this period lasts affects how much your logistics costs will be. For example, if you return the container after the free period has ended, you will be charged an extra fee.
How can you extend the free period?
Talk to your freight forwarder.Towards the end of the free period, you can talk to your freight forwarder and ask them to help you apply to the shipping company for an extension of the free period. This can usually buy you a few extra days.
If your company has a lot of cargo and has worked with the shipping company for a long time, you can ask for a longer container-free period, maybe 14~20 days.
There is one more fee to be aware of! This is called demurrage.
What is demurrage?
After the free period for the container is over, if the goods are still in the container, you need to pay an extra fee. This extra fee is called a demurrage fee. To avoid this fee, try to finish loading and unloading the goods as quickly as possible and return the container within the free period.
If you need to return an empty container quickly, here's how:
After you finish the customs process, you can contact the ship owner to find out which yard the container will be returned to. Next, contact the yard in advance and arrange for the yard's fleet to send the cargo directly to the yard and empty the container there. This means that after emptying the cargo, the container is considered empty again.This whole process is faster than mentioning it to the warehouse first and then sending it back to the yard, which can save you at least two days.