Shipping 2009 Blog

Archive for the ‘Containers’ Category

According to a survey by market research firm Exhibit Surveys Inc., trade shows are critical to marketing-oriented companies. Trade shows attract decision-makers, influence purchasing decisions, provide a point of contact for new customers, and make a lasting impression.
Think of your trade show display as the grand launch of your most valued new product or business service. Give customer prospects your best look and greet them with your most competent sales staff.
Here are the tips on how to succeed at your next trade show:
· Pick the Right Shows – Select the trade shows that your targeted market prospects and competitors attend. Check out trade show directories on the Web. Get statistics for show attendance and a profile of attendees. Talk to former exhibitors about their trade show experience at the shows you select.
· Plan Ahead -Determine the space size and dimensions of your trade show booth. Reserve a good location early for your booth by studying the floor plan. Avoid dead-end aisles, freight doors, poorly lit corners, obtrusive columns. Attendees usually turn right when they first enter the trade show exhibit hall and they look up so be sure to make your booth visible with dramatic overhead signage. Once you nail down your trade show booth number on the show management map, be aware of any booth rules and regulations that apply such as height limitations and any obstructions on show floor before planning your booth design.
Allow enough time to select, design and build a trade show display and take advantage of early show services discounts. You will be able to avoid costly rush charges and you are better able to insure against glitches. Identify the date of the trade show and also the move in date for your trade show display
· Set Objectives For Lead Development – Set trade show exhibit goals to reinforce your overall marketing objectives. Make sure the goals are reasonable and attainable, share them with your trade show exhibit team and set up systems to measure your results and validate your objectives.
Accurately qualify and measure your Return On Investment. There are software packages that allow you to identify a half dozen weighted multiple choice questions in advance that will determine how viable a client prospect is. You need to identify buyers, filter out those who are not qualified, and measure results. Rank your prospects as ” A” (highly qualified), ” B” (somewhat qualified), or “C” (poorly qualified) prospect. Have your sales force follow up on “A” leads immediately. Measure the results of these leads in stages from the number and dollar amount of proposals made to monies received from actual sales.
· Build a Dramatic Display – Before deciding on what type of trade show booth you need, determine your space size requirements and determine the number of trade shows you will be exhibiting in the next 12 months. This information will help you decide whether to buy vs. rent. If you buy, there are three categories of trade show booths: custom, custom modular, and portable. Check out advantages and disadvantages of each. Light weight materials are less expensive to operate than the traditional all- wood displays. Use tension fabrics, woods, colored metal, layered graphics that use fewer shipping containers, have a current design trend look, and save on operating costs. Older traditional trade show exhibit booths can be obsolete because they are expensive to handle due to heavy weight, require larger size and number of crates to ship, and they are not consistent with current design trends.
· Build Traffic by Being Creative- Start with a dramatic, attention-getting hanging sign. Upon entering the trade show exhibit hall the first thing attendees do is look up -Your overhead sign should have a unique design, shape and movement to it. Gobo lights traveling across a tension fabric can provide changing color and mesmerizing interest. New technologies bring high drama to your booth such as 3D video/laser image displays suspended above, your own interactive Website on large screen, robotics, holographics, waterscreen projections. Take advantage of your trade show exhibit supplier’s expertise on graphics, portability and cost management.
· Recruit the Right Booth Staff – Although the sales function of your firm is usually fundamental to trade show exhibit booth staffing, you’ll want to make sure that you have representatives who match up well with the positions of those who visit your booth.
If engineers visit your booth engage them with your engineer personnel. Also, make sure your staff knows how to engage, identify and qualify attendees as important leads, and dismiss those who are not key business prospects.
· Send Pre-Show Notices to Attendees – Trade show exhibit surveys report that three quarters of show attendees make out their schedule for exhibit visits and seminar attendance in advance. Set up meetings with clients, prospects, and press ahead of time. Contact them months ahead through direct mail, email and personal phone calls. Give them your trade show booth number and location and have an incentive at your booth that will be of value to them. Link your incentive to a direct prospect benefit and make it redeemable only by visiting your trade show exhibit. One example is to cut a numbered gift certificate in two and send half of it in advance and have the remaining half available only at your booth.
· Understand Show Services – You will need to have supplemental assistance from show services at the trade show exhibit hall. These are representatives and union laborers who provide a range of support services which include installation and dismantling, carpeting, furniture, lighting, phones, drayage and security. If you are aware of the nuances of these services and plan in advance you can save money while avoiding numerous pitfalls.
· Control Costs – Consider weight when buying a trade show display. You save substantially on trade show exhibits using lightweight materials that reduce the size and number of shipping crates.
· Follow Up Immediately -The hard work doesn’t end when the show closes – this is when you have to diligently follow up on all those sales leads. It’s best to respond to your top level ” A” prospects immediately after the show. After the “A” prospects are all contacted, go on to the “B” level prospects. Be sure to have a well-planned strategy to close sales with these prospects. Tradeshow industry research shows that sales leads from a tradeshow are closed in half the time and at almost half the cost as leads from other sources.
For addtional information, go to www.proexhibits.com.
© Copyright 1996-2006, Professional Exhibits & Graphics. All Rights Reserved

For some time, clients have known that law firms such as mine consistently oppose efforts by big corporations, car dealers, credit card companies and the like to deprive consumers of their rights to have their disputes decided in a court of law with “binding arbitration agreements” often hidden in consumer finance and purchase contracts. You rarely see the binding arbitration agreement in anything you sign; in fact, sometimes big corporations trick consumers into “signing” binding arbitration agreements by putting them into fine-print bill-stuffers so they’re not read. These “agreements” provide that you have agreed to binding arbitration and a waiver of any class action remedies if you even use your credit card after having received the bill-stuffer for a single charge. Fair? Hardly.

Big corporations have for years argued that binding arbitration is really fair, and that’s why big corporations are really doing everyone a favor by depriving them of their right to choose to go to court. Mind you, my firm is not opposed to choice: if a consumer wants to go to binding arbitration with a single arbitrator or retired judge, and wants to go there voluntarily, we’re happy to go that route, but we always insist that the client should have the choice.

Binding arbitration agreements deprive consumers of the choice to go to court. That’s precisely what they’re designed to do, and that’s why big corporations, car dealers, etc. hide them in small print in the midst of the multi-page consumer contracts that they force people to sign.

Some of my clients, however, have posed the question to me: what is unfair about binding arbitration? The arbitrator is supposed to be fair, right? Well, the answer is no. Corporations usually use captive arbitration providers, such as JAMS, NAF (National Arbitration Forum) or AAA (American Arbitration Association), where the corporation, NOT the consumer, is the repeat customer. The judges know that their paychecks and their repeat business comes from the corporations, not from the consumers, so these forums are hardly impartial.

If you have any remaining doubts about whether these forums are impartial, consider one of their biggest proponents: Dick Cheney. Our venerable Vice President has done pretty much everything within his power, and quite a few things very much outside of his power, to make a mockery of our system of justice. His recent refusal to comply with legal and congressional subpoenas is but a “tip of the Cheney iceberg,” towards which our ship of state is sadly headed.

Cheney’s distaste for pesky little things like constitutional guarantees, the Bill of Rights and due process of law date back to his Halliburton days, if not before. In the 1990’s, when Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, he tricked all of the employees of Halliburton and its subsidiaries into “signing” binding arbitration agreements simply by showing up to work. In other words, the company sent out a fine-print notice indicating that by the simple act of showing up to work, you had consented to waive your right to trial by jury and consented to having any disputes against Halliburton decided by in a binding arbitration. Halliburton has a long history of terminating workers who have filed worker’s comp claims and has a reputation of firing or laying off “the old, the sick and the halt,” so it’s little wonder Halliburton decided that none of its employees deserved any right to a jury trial.

Fast forward to 2005, and Jamie Leigh Jones, an employee of Halliburton subsidiary KBR, goes to Iraq and encounters a slightly upsetting employment situation: she is drugged and gang-raped by her fellow employees, who then lock her in a shipping container and warn her that if she tries to go for medical treatment, she’d be fired. The US Embassy eventually had to free her from the shipping container. Jamie had evidently managed to contact her father, who, after having no luck pursuing her daughter’s protection or safety with KBR or Halliburton, called his US Representative, Ted Poe. Representative Poe similarly had no luck with calling the company, so Rep. Poe had to involve the US Embassy. Obviously, there are embassy witnesses to the allegations.

When Ms. Jones tried to sue in court…SURPRISE!!! Halliburton invoked its binding arbitration clause, and Ms. Jones cannot pursue her claims against her employer in a court of law.

All thanks to Dick Cheney.

So, if you ever ask me in the future why I oppose involuntary binding arbitration, or if I detect that you might be buying the corporate PR messages about how wonderful it is, I’ll simply respond: would you want your consumer dispute against a corporation decided by Dick Cheney?

When we hear the term storage containers, we might think of those everyday containers that store kitchen stuff (unless we happen to be in the transportation industry). While we all know what the everyday containers do, we might not be clearly aware of storage container roles in other areas. Let us take a look.

When You Are Moving Your Residence

When you are shifting your residence, moving your household stuff to the new place can be a very big hassle, probably the biggest hassle. Moving companies, with their big storage containers and tailor made trucks, can take over this hassle. They will come to your current residence, pack all your stuff into large 20 feet or 40 feet containers (often the packing is entrusted to local packers), load the containers with utmost ease into their specialized trucks and transport it to your new place.

At the new place, you have a few options. Arrange a location where the moving company can drop the storage container until your new home and you are ready to shift the household goods. A common alternative provided by the moving company is to make available their own storage facilities to store the container. You can use their facility for a few days or for long periods.

The key item that makes possible such convenience is the storage container. These are typically standard shipping containers that have been designed to fit special container trucks. The trucks typically come fitted with specialized equipment that makes loading and unloading these large containers a simple task.

The storage container also makes it possible for you to keep your stuff protected from the weather and other kinds of danger while you are getting everything ready to move the stuff into your new residence. These are containers designed to withstand the rigors of long ocean voyages. You can keep the container somewhere near your home, or store them safely at a container storage center.

Moving and Storing Stuff for Businesses

The kind of services mentioned above, packing, loading, transporting, unloading and storing is even more important for businesses. They would typically need to move heavy machinery, or large quantities of merchandise, frequently from place to place. They can save on the costs and troubles involved by entrusting this task to specialists.

Again, it is the storage container that helps things move efficiently.

Other Occasions When You Need Storage Solutions

Businesses can store extra inventory and other stuff that can clutter their premises in storage containers, which can even be stored outside in the open so long as they are in a secure area.

Instead of storing the containers at your own premises, you can also opt for keeping them with storage service companies. This option can avoid exposing the containers to weather and other kinds of danger and risks.

The storage container is indeed a great convenience!

Let us introduce shipping containers first. Shipping containers are standard sized boxes in which you ship merchandise. These are not small boxes for packing a pair of shoes. Standard shipping containers typically come in 8 feet by 8.5 (or 9.5) feet cross-sections, 20 or 40 or 45 feet long. So they compare best with log cabins than shoeboxes. (In fact, a popular use for empty shipping containers is to convert them into houses.)

Shipping containers transformed the logistics scenario and led to a huge expansion in world trade. You pack your merchandise into shipping containers at the factory, load it into a standard container truck that goes to the nearest railroad station or sea port where the containers are transferred by specialized container handling equipment into a railcar or ocean going ship.

The railcar then travels thousands of miles to a distant city or the nearest seaport. The custom built container ships are designed to accept containers on their open deck, and accommodate a large number of shipping containers without wasting storage space. (Containers stored thus can occasionally tumble down into the sea during a storm while the ship is at sea.)

Merchandise Shipped in Containers

You pack your merchandise packages, say, cartons with shoe boxes inside, into these containers. The merchandise packages are designed to occupy the space inside the shipping containers without wasting any space. You seal the container door securely.

The container typically travels unopened till it reaches its destination. It might get transferred to trucks, railcars, ships or even aircraft during this travel. At the destination seaport or airport, it gets transferred again into railcars or trucks for transport to the destination city.

So what do you transport in containers? Almost everything is the short answer. Most consumer goods are transported in containers from manufacturing factories to the distributor warehouses. Heavy machinery is transported in containers up to the customer site. There are custom built containers to accommodate different kinds of merchandise. A look at these customizations will give some idea of the variety of merchandise that travel in containers.

• DRY VAN containers are designed to accommodate such items cartons, jute bags, bales, pallets and drums
• REEFER containers are temperature controlled in the range of minus 25 degrees centigrade to plus 25 degrees centigrade
• OPEN TOP special bulk containers are for bulk materials and heavy machinery
• OPEN SIDE containers can accommodate large sized pallets
• VENTILATED containers carry organic produce that need to be ventilated during transit
• TANK containers carry bulk liquids
• ROLLING FLOOR containers allow difficult-to-handle cargo to be rolled in and out
• HANGAR BEAM FITTED containers accommodate garments on hangars without further packing

Shipping Container Legalities

Containers need Convention for Safe Containers (CSC) certification (authorized by International Maritime Organization) to prove their “continued safe handling and transportability in the commercial intermodal transport environment”. The inspections need to be carried out periodically.

Merchandise in export trade also needs customs inspection and certification before shipment.

Steel containers make excellent containers. Whether these are steel drums, pails or huge shipping containers, steel is an excellent choice for making containers.

Unlike plastic, steel containers can be recycled. Shipping containers are recycled by converting them into useful structures or storage containers for use onshore. When these structures are at the end of their useful lives, they can be recycled again as scrap steel used in producing new steel.

Shipping Containers

Usually made with high tensile steel that also has rust inhibiting properties, shipping containers are reinforced with a rigid steel framework. The sturdy construction enables the shipping containers to withstand the extreme conditions it can be exposed to during long ocean voyages.

Shipping containers are large structures with standard dimensions. They have a common cross section of 8′ width and 8.5′ height, and come in lengths of 20′, 40′ and 45′. In fact, cargo capacity is expressed in TEUs, or twenty-foot equivalent units, each unit representing a twenty-foot standard shipping container. Thus a 40-foot container will be two TEUs.

The sturdiness of the shipping container makes it ideal for many other uses when they become surplus. They can become surplus either at the end of their ocean-worthy life or because empty containers accumulate at certain places and begin to cause problems.

Alternative Uses for Steel Shipping Containers

Wherever a compact and secure enclosed space is required, these steel containers provide a good solution. They are constructed to be as vandal and thief proof as possible, and using padlocks and other aids can increase their security further. Let us look at a few alternative uses for the steel containers.

LIVING SPACE: Doors can be modified and windows can be cut in the steel walls to start the process. Internal partitions, fold up beds and furniture, toilet and washroom units and working areas can make the steel containers into living units at worksites. And these mobile houses can be transported from site to site using the container trucks.

SELF-STORAGE UNITS: With increasing clutter in households and offices, the demand for independent storage spaces is growing. Steel containers can be converted into self-storage units with a minimum of work. Self-storage units are attractive storage solutions because they give control to the hirers. Hirers can use their own lock and key, and move things in and out whenever they want.

WORK CANTEENS: With a kitchen unit, food service counters, and other essential facilities, the steel containers can become canteens at work sites. The containers can also be converted into worker rest rooms, offices and data centers.

MARKET STALLS & MULTI-LEVEL SHOPS: The steel containers can be converted into mobile market stalls. By stacking the containers, and providing connecting stairs, you can even create multi-level shops.

Steel shipping containers typically have treated-wood insides and can be fitted up to provide pleasing or otherwise suitable interiors. Lighting and heating facilities can be provided with internal fittings, and power can be availed through either an external plug or solar electricity generation facilities.

Design possibilities are numerous. The walls and roof of the steel containers can be removed to make them into flat racks that provide easier loading for many materials, and are easier transport when empty (several empty units can be stacked for transport).

Steel containers are indeed ideal when you want sturdy and secure solutions.