Case 1
Interview Record: A 20-Year-Old Freight Forwarder Talks About the Pitfalls of Air Freight to Dubai - 2
"When I ship air freight to Dubai, I first quote a low price. But once the goods arrive at our warehouse, things change. Suddenly, I tell the customer they need to pay an extra service fee. If they still want me to ship the goods, they have to agree to the new price. If not, they have to come pick up the goods themselves. There are so many peers who do this kind of thing."
"As people say nowadays, there aren't enough scammers in China. When it comes to air freight to Dubai, as long as you dare to quote a low price, there will definitely be people who dare to use your service and try cooperating with you. There are just too many people waiting to be scammed."
"There are also those who make profits by secretly changing the cargo dimensions. Light cargo is charged by volume, but after receiving the goods, they change the dimensions without permission. Suppose the cargo is 3 cubic meters. When they measure it, they play tricks with the dimensions—like measuring diagonally, or not showing you the measurement photos at all. After measuring, they tell you it's 3.25 or 3.3 cubic meters. The difference in volume is their profit."
"Because air freight has weight ratio requirements. Sometimes, if a plane has a lot of passengers and luggage, the airline needs heavy cargo to balance the plane. Planes need a certain take-off weight; if there are too many light goods, they can't achieve the optimal loading. So for airlines, the heavier the cargo, the cheaper the price."
"Taking on more than they can handle. Actually, this is a kind of marketing talk, and it's understandable—they just want to get the goods first. But the key problem is that they clearly don't have the capability. They're just a small freight forwarder with 7 or 8 people in an urban village, but they still take on more than they can manage."
"Every company has different scales and resources. They clearly can't handle the goods, but they still take them all. First, they let the customer pay the freight, but then the follow-up service is a mess. Some customers' goods are for exhibitions or need to meet delivery deadlines, so they have strict time requirements. But the freight forwarder can't meet them at all. In the end, just to save a little money, the customer's order is delayed, and they can't explain it to their own clients."
"We don't do these things. These are just small tricks that small freight forwarders use to make quick money, only caring about immediate interests. Have you ever seen a large-scale freight forwarder do this? Like us, DL International Logistics, we've been doing air freight to Dubai for so many years, and 80% of our customers have placed repeat orders. Now we have nearly 100 employees. We're running a real business—we bought the entire 8th floor of Block B, Rongde Times Square in Longgang District outright. Can you develop to this level by making quick money from immediate interests?"
"For our dedicated air freight to Dubai service, we bought 20 pallet positions in one go and paid for a full year in advance. How many companies do you think can do that? Not many around. That's why I say we're one of the top 5—this is the reason. This is real money; we paid it before even starting the work. With strength, we can take big project goods. We once helped Huawei ship electronic products worth 40 million yuan. Huawei has already paved the way for you—if Huawei trusts our freight forwarding company, what else do you have to worry about?"{learn more}
Case 2
Air freight to UAE handles a mix of goods, our self-developed ERP software makes it a breeze
Mr. Guo needs to ship a mix of goods like mobile phone accessories and chargers via air freight to UAE. He runs a noon e-commerce business, and each shipment has dozens of different products, including battery, magnetic and liquid-containing items. Managing all these is a real hassle. His previous freight forwarder made mistakes several times—typos in Excel spreadsheets led to missing or incorrect goods in shipments.
Mr. Guo said that with product models filling the entire computer screen, even he has to check the Excel spreadsheets several times to make sure the models and quantities are correct, not to mention the freight forwarder’s operators.
We’ve had the same experience. I believe every freight forwarder doing air freight to UAE has gone through the trouble of sorting out cargo lists. We also used Excel spreadsheets at first, but as our business grew, the number of goods and product models kept increasing. More often than not, rows upon rows of Excel data on the screen make people dizzy. On top of that, it’s hard to focus when you’re swamped with work, making mistakes easy to happen.
I’m the kind of person who strives for perfection in everything I do, and I bring this mindset to the company. So a company’s culture is really just the boss’s own culture. Our company culture is all about doing things to customers’ satisfaction and to perfection. That’s why I love to research and innovate, and refuse to stick to the same old ways. Later, we decided to use a specialized warehouse ERP software.
We scoured all the warehouse ERP software on the market, but none had a standalone warehouse module. Even the ones with warehouse functions lacked a Chinese interface, so we made no progress at all. I’m totally obsessed with getting cargo management right—no wonder people say we care more about the cargo than the shippers themselves when it comes to air freight to UAE. I’d lay awake at night feeling anxious, thinking about the endless rows of data on the screen and having no solution to the problem.
Finally, by chance, we met a former software manager with rich warehouse industry experience. He knows both software technology and warehouse operations, and he agreed to assemble a team to develop a custom software for us. It was an instant match. After more than two months of development, our very own warehouse ERP management software was ready.
Now our ERP software has both Chinese and English interfaces and is simple to operate. We can monitor data in real time for every air freight to UAE order, and we don’t have to stare at a screen full of Excel data anymore.
More importantly, this warehouse ERP software has become a major selling point for our air freight to UAE service. Many customers like Mr. Guo, who ship goods with many models and small quantities, worry that we might mix things up with our busy daily work. I’ll show them our software, and they’re immediately reassured once they see how it works for themselves.
What’s more, throughout the entire air freight to UAE process, customers can check the inbound and outbound status of their goods on any computer at any time. The software is easy to use and cuts down a lot of manual data entry work.
Whether it’s a manufacturing company or a service company, you need something to showcase if you want to have a competitive edge in the industry. As the saying goes, it’s better to master one strength than to be mediocre at many things. That’s exactly the point here. These days, more and more cross-border e-commerce goods are shipped via air freight to UAE, with an increasingly diverse range of everyday products—from large industrial equipment down to tiny sundries like needles and thread. Only by keeping up with the times and committing to constant R&D and innovation, like we do, can we secure a solid position in the air freight service for the UAE cross-border e-commerce era.
DL Logistics is one of the top five providers for air freight to middle east. We have exclusive access to 20 weekly pallet positions with two major airlines, and a priority customs clearance channel at UAE air ports. We also get priority for cargo pickup at warehouses. Our local logistics team is available for phone calls even at 2 a.m. Deliveries arranged in the morning arrive by noon, and those arranged at noon arrive by afternoon. We truly live up to our reputation as one of the top five.【learn more】
DL Air Freight to Middle East—everyone who uses it says it’s smooth sailing.
Case 3
How to Choose Parcel, Air Consolidation, Sea Consolidation or Sea Trucking for Cross-Border E-Commerce Shipping to the UAE?
Do you run a cross-border e-commerce business shipping to the UAE, but have no idea when to use air parcel, air consolidation, sea consolidation or sea trucking?
If your shipment is a parcel under 10kg, you can choose air parcel for air freight to UAE. It’s a bit pricey, but the upside is fast delivery. You need to provide customer information for customs clearance, and the chance of the cargo getting stuck is really slim – unless you’re shipping prohibited products.
For shipments over 10kg, go for air consolidation for air freight to UAE. It’s air freight plus door-to-door delivery, and there are two key differences between it and air parcel. First, for customs clearance, air parcel uses personal parcel clearance, while air consolidation uses general trade clearance.
After an air consolidation shipment is picked up at the destination, it will be sent to an overseas warehouse for sorting and then delivery. So its delivery time is a bit slower, usually 7 to 9 days, and the price is much lower than air parcel.
If a customer isn’t in a hurry for the same 10kg shipment, you can choose sea consolidation, which is sea freight plus door-to-door delivery. Everything is the same as air consolidation except for the local delivery part.
Last is sea trucking. When do you use it? Only when you have a large volume of goods or oversized cargo.
No matter which shipping method you choose, two things matter most: delivery time and price.
The above is just basic theoretical knowledge, and it won’t help much when you actually need to ship goods to the UAE. Especially since the cargo volume for air freight to UAE has been growing these years, theoretical knowledge alone isn’t enough when you have real cargo to send. You need to find a specific freight forwarder, but which one? It still comes down to delivery time and price. Only a suitable freight forwarder can solve your problems, and then you can report to your boss with ease.
For air freight to UAE, never choose an outsourcing freight forwarder. They’re just middlemen who re-sell your cargo to others and make a profit from it. So you must choose a direct freight forwarder for air freight to UAE like us. We exclusively book 20 pallet positions weekly from two major airlines – outsourcing companies are not in the same league as us.
In fact, even direct freight forwarders are not all the same. Most decent ones only have 2 or 3 pallet positions a week, while our shipping capacity is 10 times that of ordinary peers. Many clients with large project cargo first came to us just to negotiate prices, simply because they didn’t know much about us. But after learning our actual strength, they all signed contracts with us smoothly.
On price: since we exclusively book a large number of pallet positions, we get a very favorable price from the airlines. This keeps our costs low, so the quotes we offer to clients are naturally competitive.
On delivery time: air freight to UAE involves many steps, including space booking, security check, palletizing, loading, customs clearance and delivery. The key steps are local customs clearance and delivery in the UAE. We have a large shipping volume, and our local agent team has over 20 years of service experience with hundreds of staff. We have a priority channel at UAE customs and can finish clearance for urgent cargo in just 2 hours. Small freight forwarders don’t have such resources or their own cooperative local agents – they all pass cargo to small local agents, who also lack resources. It’s common for these small agents to wait 2 or 3 days in line for customs clearance.
With this comparison, we are the best choice for a freight forwarder for air freight to UAE.
DL Logistics is one of the top five companies for air freight to middle east. We exclusively book 20 pallet positions weekly from two major airlines, have a priority channel for customs clearance at UAE air ports and priority pick-up at warehouses. Our local logistics team has someone answering calls even at 2 a.m. Deliver in the morning, and the cargo arrives at noon; deliver at noon, and it arrives in the afternoon. We truly live up to our reputation as one of the top five.
DL’s air freight to middle east – everyone who uses it says it’s a smooth experience.【learn more】
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