Does your business need a freight forwarder? A quick guide

Trying to grow your business across borders in 2025? First off, bravo. This is what it’s all about!

However, if you’ve been watching the headlines lately, you also know this isn’t exactly the smoothest time to do it.

With the U.S.-China tariff battle dragging on and sending the global trade system into a full-blown anxiety spiral, shipping has become a game of strategy, timing, and, well, survival. 

Prices are yo-yoing. Rules are shifting. Ports are congested. The market is a mess. So how do you navigate the chaos and still get your goods from point A to Z without losing your mind?Let’s start with something you’ve probably heard of: freight forwarders. What are they? Do you need one? Are they still enough in a world like this? Let’s break it all down..

Explore more:  How to take your e-commerce business global and succeed

Does this sound familiar?

You’re shipping internationally but have no idea where to start.

Customs, duties, and paperwork make your brain hurt.

You don’t have local logistics connections in your new target markets.

You just want to get your products where they need to go without living on the phone with random warehouses.

If you said “yes” to one or more of these, then yep: a freight forwarder might be what you’re looking for.

But hold that thought. There’s more to the story

What is a Freight Forwarder?

At its core, a freight forwarder is someone who helps you move goods across borders. Think of them like your international logistics concierge. They don’t usually move the goods themselves, but they know all the right people who do.

Back in the day (literally centuries ago), innkeepers were the OG freight forwarders. They’d ship belongings for travelers who moved from city to city. Now? Freight forwarders work with air cargo, ocean freight, warehouses, and customs agencies all over the world.

Today, your typical freight forwarder can provide a range of services, including but not limited to:

• Goods tracking
• Warehousing
• Transportation
• Customs clearance
• Ocean freight, airfreight, or Consolidation
• Cargo insurance
• Preparing documents on your behalf (bills of lading, certifications of origin, or any specific certifications related to your goods).

The kind of service you can expect varies among freight forwarders. Some provide in-house logistics services like fulfillment. However, most of them, like the innkeepers of old, work as a middle man service linking your business to their lists of providers.

Why use a Freight Forwarder?

The goal of freight forwarding is to help clients like you ship your goods:

• Efficiently
• Cost-effectively
• With quality preserved
• In regions where you lack expertise
• Scalably as your market expands

Freight forwarders are useful when you don’t want to spend time managing every aspect of your logistics with different providers. They have historically been useful in international logistics as operations are more easily carried out by specialists who know the ins and outs of a given region.

How Freight Forwarding Works

Freight forwarders are the middlemen of the logistics industry. They help buyers and sellers who lack industry connections to contract with logistics partners handling the physical movement of the goods.

In a single transaction, a freight forwarder can act as a contractor, an agent, or both based on their involvement in your logistics process. As an agent, Freight forwarders can ship your goods under their own bills of lading or air waybills. They also use their own agents or associates at the destination to provide documents for delivery, deconsolidation, and freight collection and keep an eye on their progress.

Once goods are shipped, they can also help you track the whereabouts of your goods so you can keep your customers up to date and give more precise delivery estimates.

How Do You Pick A Freight Forwarder?

Not all freight forwarders can do the same services. You will need to do your due diligence with any forwarder you work with. Even if they are registered in their own country, they may not be able to ship to other countries.

This is because the requirements to become a freight forwarder vary from region to region. Not all forwarders have “global capability” either. In the US, for example, local freight forwarders not only need to be licensed but any freight forwarder shipping from another region to the US also needs a license. 

These rules don’t always work the same way in other countries. In the UK, for example, they typically don’t need licenses to import or export, although many are part of the British International Freight Association (BIFA).

Where Freight Forwarding can Go Wrong?

Besides the licensing issues mentioned above, the main limit to freight forwarders is that they are an old system. 

Since they deal in traditional logistics freight forwarders frequently skimp on technology and emerging services in the sector (e-commerce, for example). If you’re an e-commerce business, a freight forwarder may have little ability to do things like integrate your online store into their process or expand what they offer as your business grows.

You May Want to Work with a 4PL Provider Instead

If you’re navigating international logistics for the first time, or want a more modern alternative, consider working with a 4PL (fourth-party logistics) provider. A 4PL does everything a freight forwarder does — and more. They not only arrange shipping and customs but also bring technology, transparency, and flexibility into your supply chain.

Unlike a traditional freight forwarder, a 4PL provider gives you real-time data, greater control over logistics partners, broader service coverage, and software that integrates directly with your e-commerce systems.

If you’re an e-commerce business solving your logistics for the first time, you need to work with a business that not only links you with providers but also knows tech and modern providers. That’s why today, a new type of operator is quickly taking the place of the traditional freight forwarder: the fourth-party (4PL) logistics provider.

4PL firms work in a similar way to a freight forwarder — acting as a sort of middleman to work with providers in other regions. But unlike freight-forwarders, they also come with additional features like:

• Better technology for tracking your goods
• A wider range of prices
• Greater transparency in their logistics process
• A wider network of logistics providers that are fully integrated with them
• Not limited to providers based on associations, licenses, or other regulatory bodies

At Wayfindr, we’re not a traditional freight forwarder — we’re a modern 4PL logistics company purpose-built for global e-commerce brands. We connect you with a curated network of international logistics providers tailored to your business needs. Our platform offers full transparency: you know exactly which partners are involved, and you can swap them out when needed. Our technology also integrates directly with your order management system (powered by Anchanto), enabling better tracking and fulfillment from day one.

 Wayfindr is a carbon-neutral 4PL logistics provider supporting high-growth e-commerce brands. We offer a full-service logistics of vetted providers across shipping, warehousing, customs, and last-mile delivery — all managed under one platform.

Learn more about our freight forwarding alternatives and scalable logistics services.