Mariam found a freight forwarder online for her air freight to Middle East. They missed one carton of her goods.

Mariam’s head office in UAE sells electrical parts. Last time, she had 35 cartons of low-voltage circuit breakers, AC contactors, toggle switches, etc., to send by air freight to Middle East. The goods came from different factories, so they needed to be consolidated at a warehouse.

She looked around and chose one forwarder. That forwarder promised they had a whole floor of a building as their warehouse and sent her a nice photo. Mariam trusted them. At first, it went okay. But during consolidation, small mistakes kept happening. The check info they sent had wrong quantities and duplicate lines in Excel. Mariam had to correct them several times.

Not surprisingly, when the first shipment arrived at her Dubai office, they found one carton of AC contactors missing. After a lot of back and forth, they found out the truth: the forwarder’s warehouse and office were all rented. When they moved goods around, they misplaced one carton and just forgot to ship it.

I told Mariam: in Shenzhen, there are 60,000 freight forwarders. Thousands of them do air freight to Middle East. 90% are small village forwarders. They call it ”asset-light”. They rent their office, rent their warehouse, rent their trucks. All they have are a few computers and phones. When they get an order, they just pass it to their upstream partner and send the goods directly to that partner’s warehouse. So they have zero control over your cargo.

We also started from that stage. But after many upgrades, we now have a 20,000-square-meter, well-managed foreign trade warehouse. It has six floors. To enter, you must wear a helmet and a uniform. Which path you can walk on is clearly marked. Goods are stacked neatly with clear labels. No outsiders allowed. We also bought the entire 8th floor, Block B, Rongde Times Square, Longgang District, with full payment. We now have nearly 100 employees. A freight forwarder of this size is miles ahead of those small village forwarders. Every foreign client who visits us gives us a thumbs up.

Mariam was no exception. She took a video tour of our company and told us she felt very relieved. She finally found a reliable forwarder. Yes, it works both ways — it’s hard for forwarders to find good clients, and hard for clients to find trustworthy forwarders. Her second batch, 50 cartons of low-voltage electrical parts, was handed to us for shipping. After consolidation, we double-checked the list, inspected the packaging, and shipped on time. Seven days later, the goods arrived smoothly at her designated factory. Mariam finally felt at ease.

DL Logistics, one of the top five air freight to Middle East providers. We have a fixed buy of 20 pallet positions per week on two major airlines. We get priority clearance at UAE air cargo terminals. We cut the line for pickup at the warehouse. Our local logistics team answers the phone at 2 a.m. Ship in the morning, deliver by noon. Ship at noon, deliver by the afternoon. Truly one of the top five. With DL air freight to Middle East, everyone who uses it says it’s smooth.