What exporters and importers ask AI assistants before choosing a freight forwarder

The questions are about the parts that go wrong: which documents are needed, how long clearance really takes, what the total landed cost is, and who is responsible when a consignment is held. Almost nobody asks which forwarder is the biggest.

The companion page on how a freight forwarder gets recommended by AI covers what to publish. This page is the question list and what a complete answer to each one contains.

The questions, in the words buyers use

Documents and compliance

• "Documents needed to export this product to this country"
• "Do I need an import licence or a clearance from another department for this item"
• "How do I find the right tariff heading for my product"
• "Do I need a certificate of origin, and who issues it"
• "What is an authorised dealer code and why does the port need it"

Time

• "How long does customs clearance take at this port"
• "Door to door time from this city to this country"
• "How many free days before detention and demurrage start"
• "How long does a refund of duty or a scheme benefit take"

Money

• "Total landed cost of this import including duty"
• "What are terminal handling and documentation charges"
• "Which of these charges can I claim as input credit"
• "Two quotes look different, how do I compare them"

Risk

• "Who is liable if the goods are damaged or lost at sea"
• "Is marine insurance separate from the forwarder's liability"
• "My container is held, what happens next and what does it cost me"
• "What do the delivery terms mean for who pays and who bears risk"

What a good answer looks like

For documents, a list per commodity and per destination, naming who produces each document. The buyer wants to know which papers they generate, which the supplier generates, which the chamber or a testing body issues, and which you handle. Generic export document lists exist everywhere. A list for one commodity to one country is what gets used.

For time, a realistic range at a named port with the steps inside it: filing, assessment, any examination, the other regulator's clearance where it applies, duty payment and release. Name the step that usually causes the delay.

For money, the full sequence described on the companion page, with the recoverable items marked as recoverable. A buyer's finance team asks specifically which charges carry input credit, and almost no forwarder page answers it.

For risk, two paragraphs that are almost always missing. One separating your liability under your trading conditions and the applicable convention from the cargo insurance the buyer should hold. One explaining the delivery terms your customers actually use, in the plainest possible words: who arranges carriage, who pays which charge, and the point at which risk passes.

Where you are probably missing

• No lanes named, so a route question cannot reach you.
• No statement of what you do in house, which is the first thing a serious buyer checks.
• Nothing on free days, detention or demurrage, although it is one of the most asked questions in the trade.
• No commodity specific document pages, only a general list copied from a textbook.
• No landed cost page, so the biggest question in Indian trade is answered by a calculator on somebody else's site.
• No held shipment page, the most urgent query in your category.
• Trading conditions not published, although your liability depends on them.

A worked example: why a consignment gets held and the first day after

This is the most valuable page a forwarder can write. Structure it as a decision tree that a panicking buyer can follow.

Step one: establish what kind of hold it is. Ask the reader to look at what the system or the broker has told them and sort it into four buckets: a query on classification or value, a pending clearance from another regulator, an examination or scanning order, or a document mismatch.

Step two: for each bucket, say what has to be produced and by whom. A classification query needs technical literature, the manufacturer's datasheet and often a sample, and may need a written opinion. A pending regulator clearance needs the application, the test report from an approved laboratory and the product labelling in the form that regulator requires. An examination order needs the container moved and opened, labour arranged and a representative present. A document mismatch needs an amendment, and you should say plainly which documents can be amended, which need the shipping line's involvement and which cannot be changed after filing.

Step three: the clock. Explain that free days at the terminal and free days on the container are two different periods charged by two different parties, and that a hold runs both of them down at once. Say what the reader should do on day one to slow the cost: request the free time extension from the line, move the container to a bonded facility where that is possible, and get the missing document started in parallel rather than in sequence.

Step four: who to call, in order, and what information to have ready: the document reference, the container number, the bill of lading, the invoice and packing list, and the name of the broker handling the file.

Write that page once and it earns calls for years, because it is searched at the moment somebody is willing to change forwarder.

What these questions do not include

They do not include your global network map, your office count or your tonnage. None of those answers a buyer's question.

They also do not include a duty figure for a product you have not classified. Publishing a duty rate against a loose product description is how a landed cost estimate becomes a complaint. Publish the method, name the tariff heading you are describing, and say that the classification decides the rate.

And they do not include a clearance time you present as a commitment. Clearance is not in your control. A typical range with the steps named is honest and useful. A promised clearance time is a claim you cannot keep.

What to publish first

• The held consignment page described above.
• One document page per commodity and destination that matters to your business.
• The landed cost sequence for your largest import commodity.
• A page on free days, detention and demurrage, with who charges what.
• A page on the delivery terms your customers use, in plain words.
• A page on your own capability: licences, locations, what is in house.
• Your trading conditions, published and linked from every service page.

Date everything. Rules, tariffs and terminal charges change, and an undated page in this sector is assumed to be wrong.

Common questions

Are we not giving away the knowledge we charge for?

You are giving away the description of the process, which your competitors already know. What you cannot give away is doing it: the relationships at the port, the judgement on a borderline classification and the ability to act on a Saturday. Buyers who read the process page are more likely to hire you, not less, because they now understand why it needs someone.

Which commodity page should we write first?

The one where you have the most shipments and the most trouble. Volume gives you the detail, and trouble gives you the content nobody else has written.

Should we publish a landed cost calculator?

A calculator is useful for the reader and invisible to an assistant, which cannot run it. Publish the worked sequence in text next to it, with the classification caveat. The text version is the part that gets cited.

Our customers are all long standing. Why bother?

Because their new purchase manager checks the market before renewing, and because your customers' own customers ask these questions. A trade that runs on referral still runs on being verifiable when the referral checks.

How do we build our own list?

Use the questions in your last fifty customer emails, especially the urgent ones, and every query raised on a file last quarter. Ask those of two assistants without naming your firm, and note which official pages get cited so you know what to link to rather than duplicate.

What to do first

Write the held consignment page this week. It is the highest intent question in your trade, it needs nothing but your own experience, and almost nobody has answered it properly.