What's the Differences Between the FCL Cargoes and the LCL Cargoes?

With the rapid development of global productivity level and international trade, The recent decade has seen the eye-catching development of international trade and transportation industry . In the early 1990s, container transportation was not very common in the whole world, and a large part of international trade goods were transported in the form of traditional bulk cargo. Nowadays, in addition to ore, oil and other special import and export commodities, other import and export goods by sea transport, most of them are transported by container, regardless of the  distance of the journey,  the value of the goods. 　　

In the import and export commodity trade, due to the market capacity, the buyer's market forecast and the buyer's own business strength and many other factors, The quantity of the import goods is, to some extend, specific for a certain period, due to many factors such as the market capacity, buyer's business plan and so forth.  In the vast majority of cases, the commodities are in full container quantities in terms of international trade, but sometimes the goods quantity is less than one or more full container quantities.  Besides, although a buyer orders the goods from a seller in a whole container, the goods in the container are sold by two or more exporters;  Alternatively, the contents of the container are to be delivered to different consignees at the port of destination, sometimes even at different ports of destination.

how to define FCL cargoes and LCL cargoes?

FCL cargoes: the cargoes can be loaded in the whole containers, and be shipped to the same destination from the same departure terminal. Otherwise, the goods are LCL cargoes.

FCL cargoes In container transportation business, we put a container, an exporter, a consignee, the port of destination, to meet the conditions of the goods is called "four" the whole case goods, and put a container, the alteration, the consignee and the port of destination as long as there is one in two of three or more than two export cargo, is defined as the LCL goods.

The transportation costs of LCL and FCL are very different in terms of the customs clearance procedures and in time and cost. 

Customs clearance for LCL is more complicated and takes longer than for FCL.  

First, a whole container of goods just conforms to the minimum unit of customs inspection, customs seal and release of export and import countries. As long as the documents submitted by the exporter and importer are reasonable, legal and complete, the export customs and import customs will soon be cleared after the relevant procedures and taxes are collected.  LCL is not so simple and fast.  Export customs will not release a single shipment of goods in a container if the documents onf one of the goods are wrong.  Because the export customs must do a good job of sealing the container to allow cargo containers exit the country.  Therefore, in the same container, any goods can't complete customs clearance, is bound to affect the timely export and transportation of other goods.  

Second, LCL goods are far less extensive and flexible than FCL goods. It requires transportation companies to attract and reasonably match some export goods that are suitable for the same container with the port of shipment, port of destination, delivery date, variety, volume, weight and other conditions.  These requirements are difficult to meet and will take a long time.  If the cargo master consignment of transport company business capacity is not strong, so, the time of cargo transport will be delayed longer.  

Thirdly, in general, FCL goods can be shipped directly at inland ports, while LCL goods can only be delivered at developed coastal ports due to the relatively small supply of goods in mainland and relatively large supply of goods in coastal areas. There is no doubt  that it will add up a great deal of extra trouble to the exporters.  According to the relevant regulations of our government, export goods must be inspected by the commodity inspection bureau in the place where production is conducted and where export declaration is made.  If the goods are exported to the local customs declaration within the jurisdiction of the province (autonomous region, municipality directly under the Central Government) where the production is located, a batch of goods only need to be inspected once.  Otherwise, if the declaration is made in different places, a batch of export commodities inspected legally must go through two inspections before the customs will release them.  

LCL is more expensive than FCL.  

Under normal circumstances, the freight of FCL transportation of goods by sea generally include freight, transportation surcharge and port sundry charges.  The freight and surcharge for LCL and FCL shall be the same, except for the charges for assembling the goods at the port of shipment and unpacking the goods at the port of destination.  Arguably, the difference of the freight is not that obvious, however, because labour cost levels vary between regions all over the world. Thus, the carrier in order to earn higher profits, often by means of "fuzzy", not specified in the quotation is not what charges, how much, and just generally according to the categories of goods to which the port of destination according to how much each freight ton charge, handling charges is temporary freely report, and said how much is how much, the carrier didn't explain the obligation,  Shippers have no room to bargain, and how much they charge depends on the circumstances.

In addition, it should also be noted that the larger the quantity and total value of each transaction, the lower the transaction cost; conversely, the smaller the quantity and total value, the higher the transaction cost.  Compared with FCL, the quantity and total value of LCL is generally smaller. Therefore, from this perspective, the transaction cost of LCL must be higher than FCL.  This is because, clinking a deal the cost of goods sample and mailing fee, fax, telephone and other communication fees, letter of credit notification fee, import and export goods customs clearance fee, origin certificate of the certificate, etc., are by the number of copies rather than by the size of the transaction amount to charge.  When these business costs are finally allocated to transaction costs, the share of unit cost of large transaction volume will be small, and the share of unit cost of small transaction volume will be large.