Freight forwarding from Wangara
Freight forwarder in Perth
Red Nav is a freight forwarder in Perth. We move sea, air and road cargo in and out of Western Australia for businesses that import and export. Small enough that the person who answers the phone knows what a bill of lading is.
Based in Wangara, in the northern industrial belt where a lot of Perth's importers are.
Monday to Friday, 9am to 4pm Perth time
- Trading since 2006 Moving sea and air cargo out of Wangara, Perth
- In the industry 40 years Suzette van der Heijden, who runs the place
- More than 99% Of WA's container trade goes through Fremantle, per Fremantle Ports
- A team of Five One office in Wangara, so your job is not passed between departments
What we can move for you
Most of what we do is ordinary importing and exporting for Western Australian businesses. If your goods fit in a container, on a pallet or in a crate, the answer is yes.
The everyday work
- A whole container to yourself. Called a full container load (FCL). Worth it once you have enough to fill one. Sea freight through Fremantle.
- Part of a container, shared with others. Called a less than container load (LCL). You pay for the space you use, which is how most first imports travel.
- Air cargo, in and out of Perth and anywhere else in Australia, when the date matters more than the rate. Air freight.
- Road freight Australia wide, container cartage around Perth once the box lands, and coastal shipping between Australian ports where it beats the truck. Road transport.
- Refrigerated containers for anything that has to stay cold or stay warm, anywhere from minus 40 to plus 60.
- Motor vehicles, in or out, in a container or driven on and off a roll-on roll-off (RoRo) ship.
- Household goods for people moving to or from Australia. Moving overseas.
The awkward work, which is where we are useful
- Breakbulk and project cargo. Anything that will not go in a box. Machinery, oversized plant, pieces that have to be lifted rather than lifted onto.
- Goods going out and coming back on a temporary admission (ATA) Carnet. Exhibition stands, professional equipment, samples. A Carnet de Passage is the separate document for taking a vehicle temporarily into another country, and we handle those too.
- Spare parts for vessels. Small ships, schedules that move, ports nobody has heard of. Fiddly work, and we take it on.
What freight forwarding costs in Perth
There is no honest single answer, and anybody who gives you one over the phone before seeing the job is guessing. What we can do is tell you what the parts are, so a quote is readable rather than a single number you have to take on faith.
A landed import cost is usually made up of:
- The freight itself, sea or air
- Origin charges at the other end
- Terminal handling at Fremantle
- Customs clearance
- Duty and goods and services tax (GST), where they apply
- Quarantine, if the goods need inspecting or treating
- The truck from the wharf to your door
Cargo insurance sits outside that list and is worth asking about separately. A shipping line's liability is limited and is nothing like the value of what is usually in the box, which surprises people at the worst possible moment.
Our quotes set those out separately. It takes longer to prepare and it is harder to make look cheap, but it means you find out about the terminal handling charge before the invoice rather than after it.
If something genuinely cannot be known up front, like whether a container gets pulled for inspection, we say so rather than leaving it off and adding it later.
Quoting costs nothing. Air quotes usually go out the same day, and inside 24 hours either way. Sea quotes depend on how much has to come back to us from the other end, so an unusual job can take a day or two longer.
Monday to Friday, 9am to 4pm Perth time
Customs clearance and quarantine
We arrange customs clearance as part of the job. To be straight about how that works, Red Nav is not a licensed customs broker. Clearance is lodged by a licensed broker we work with, and we manage it for you so it is one conversation rather than two. If you already use your own broker, that is fine too.
Quarantine is the other one that catches people. Goods can be held for inspection or treatment by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and from September to April there are extra seasonal measures on a long list of countries and goods because of the brown marmorated stink bug.
If your cargo is caught by those, the cost and the delay are usually larger than anything else on the quote.
What the stink bug season means for your shipment.
If you are exporting rather than importing
Plenty of what we do goes the other way, and the job is not a mirror image of an import.
The money works differently. There is no Australian duty or GST to pay on the way out, but the country your goods are landing in usually has both, and which of you pays them depends on the Incoterms you agreed with your buyer. Getting that wrong is the most common way an export turns into an argument.
The clock works differently too. On an import the date that matters is when the vessel arrives. On an export it is the cut off, which is days before the ship sails. Miss it and your cargo waits for the next sailing rather than catching up.
And some destinations want paperwork Australia does not, such as a certificate of origin or an import permit obtained at the other end before the goods leave here. Tell us where it is going early and we will tell you what it needs.
Who you actually deal with
Five people in one office in Wangara. Small enough that whoever picks up your job already knows the ones either side of it, and if somebody is away, whoever covers can see the same file.
At the other end we are not on our own. Red Nav is a member of PPL Networks, a worldwide association of independent forwarders, which is how a small office in Wangara arranges a collection in a town it has never been to.
Why Wangara rather than the city
Most Perth forwarders sit in the central business district (CBD) or down near the port. Osborne Park, Malaga, Balcatta, Landsdale and Joondalup are all inside twenty minutes of us, and that is where a lot of the importers actually are.
If you want to come in and go through your paperwork with somebody, you can. And when a delivery has to be sorted out on the day, we are on the same side of town as the cargo.
Neither the port nor the airport is far. Sea cargo lands at Fremantle and air cargo at Perth Airport.
Questions people ask before they call
What does a freight forwarder actually do?
A freight forwarder does not own the ship or the plane. We buy the space, book it, and hold the job together, so the shipping line, the agent at the other end, the customs broker and the truck company are our problem rather than yours.
On a typical import that is finding the sailing or the flight, arranging collection, the paperwork, clearing the Australian border, and the delivery to your door.
How much do freight forwarders charge?
For the freight itself, whatever the space costs on the day, which moves. For our part, a fee for arranging and managing it.
The honest answer is that the freight rate is rarely where a job goes wrong on cost. A container that lands without the right paperwork sits at the wharf running up charges that dwarf anything you saved on the rate.
Do I need a customs broker as well?
Not separately. Clearance is lodged by a licensed broker, and we arrange that as part of the job. If you already have your own broker you can keep them.
Is it worth it for one small shipment?
For a small shipment you would normally go LCL, sharing a container, so you pay for the space you use rather than a whole box. It costs more per carton than a full container does, but the first import is where the expensive mistakes get made, and those cost more than the saving.
This is my first import. Is that a problem?
No, and say so when you call. It changes what we tell you and nobody here minds explaining it.
Getting a quote
The more you can tell us the faster it comes back. Useful things are what the goods are, roughly how big and how heavy, where they are now, where they need to end up, and whether there is a date that matters.
If you do not know some of that yet, ask anyway. Half of what we do is working out the questions.
Unit 26, 110 Inspiration Drive, Wangara, Perth WA 6065. Monday to Friday, 9am to 4pm.