SHIPMENT TRACKING, How To Figure Out Goods Location!

SHIPMENT TRACKING PROCESS, A MEASURE TAKEN TO FIGURE OUT SHIPMENT LOCATION

Once an order has been placed, it becomes necessary to ascertain the vessel or freight’s location which requires a thorough approach known as ‘shipment tracking’ which is often deployed by many. This is because consignees, shippers, and the shipping companies responsible wouldn’t just sit back and assume the status of the vessel and the freight is in good shape. However, a couple of things could happen to billions of dollars worth of goods, more reason why concerned parties would always want to stay on top of the situation.

To deal with this challenge, it will be right to give it a proper touch that cuts across the consignee and logistics approach. This will mean unfolding steps and measures that are often deployed by shipping companies other than limiting our analysis.

Firstly, is the online tracking approach, which is often deployed by all concerned parties. This approach practically cut across email follow-up from a consignee or his representative down to the freight forwarder or the principal.

To do this effectively, figure out the name of the vessel or the ship via the freight bill of lading, which would require imputing the ship’s name on MarineTraffic interface after loading the web page (MarineTraffic.com) for example, look out for the vessel search dialog box located at the top right corner of the site and enter the name of the ship, this will pull up similar vessels of different category that are associated with the vessel’s ID, then select specifically, the name and type of the vessel that is associated with that particular shipment. Alternatively, one could do this through a search engine, and once you’re done, click search and you will be faced with something like this screenshot.

This will eventually lead to the location, nationality of the vessel, the type of vessel, and its name coupled with other information regarding her voyage, with that, one can determine the vessel’s ETA (expected time of arrival).

On the other hand, if your intent is to track a particular container, it will require a different approach unlike the approach given to ship or vessel tracking. Meaning, the shipment bill of lading number (B/L No.) or the container number enclosed on the freight bill of lading will be used instead. This measure is used to track full container load and less than container load freights.

Tracking a full container load often requires the use of the shipment’s master bill of lading or the house bill of lading. But, should a shipping company decide to track this category of freight, documents like the Draft Copy bill of lading and the shipment manifest are often used to track such shipment.

In a bid to track a shipment with the aid of the container ID or the bill of lading number, one is expected to approach this correctly by logging on to the shipping line’s website section that has to do with shipment tracking (container number or bill of lading number dialog box), impute one of the ID’s into any of the chosen options and hit search, then the search result from the liner will appear as above.  

Detailing the port of unloading, the dimension of the container the goods it was shipped with, ports of transshipment (if transshipped in the process) with date’s couple with the container number. If the container hasn’t been unloaded, you will only find information regarding the shipment ETA (expected time of arrival). But if the goods have spent more than the required time or you couldn’t find information concerning the shipment, then you will have to contact your shipper or the principal (the latter is for less than container load and the principal’s agent only approach) through an email or company’s telephone line. With this, you’re done with your tracking. Congratulation.

While we move on to the Manual Shipment Tracking process.

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