There is a common misconception that cargo damage is the responsibility of the carrier. Except for certain circumstances where there is no doubt about the fault, the shipper and freight transport provider are also liable to be held responsible. The liability begins when the cargo becomes under their possession and control and ends when it leaves their control. The question to be asked here is, who controls your cargo?

1. Cargo Damage can lead to significant financial loses for freight transport businesses.

When you’re shipping goods across the globe, it’s important to keep in mind that cargo damage can have a significant impact on your bottom line. For starters, there’s the cost of replacing damaged goods and repairing your vehicles. Then there’s the cost of moving those goods to their destination and storing them until they’re ready for sale. Next is time spent dealing with administration issues surrounding repairs and replacements; for example, writing up claims against insurance providers or filing lawsuits against negligent parties. These costs can quickly add up—and could affect profitability if not managed properly by freight transport companies.

2. It leads to loss of goodwill and reputation.

In the long run, losing a customer can be worse than losing money. If a customer has a bad experience with your freight transport business, they may never return to buy from you again. They will tell other people about their bad experience and you could potentially lose more customers due to word-of-mouth advertising.

Remember that you are in the service industry and your reputation is everything! Keep this in mind when delivering cargo on time and making sure that it arrives in good condition so that your customers will keep coming back for more of your services (and not someone else’s).

3. Damaged cargo can give rise to litigation with the parties involved in the contract.

When you are involved in a cargo damage case, it is important to know about litigation. Litigation is the process of resolving disputes between two or more parties. This can be done through legal means that may involve the court system and other related organizations. To determine whether litigation is necessary, you need to consider if there are any provisions in your contract for dispute resolution when damages occur during freight transport.

If your contract does not have any provision for dispute resolution and there has been damage to cargo due to another party’s negligence or failure to follow agreed upon procedures, then litigation may be necessary. In this scenario, there will likely be many entities involved such as yourself (the shipper), your customer (the receiver) and various insurance companies who might be responsible for covering costs associated with repair or replacement of damaged goods due to loss or theft during freight transport services provided by carriers like truckers/trucking companies as well as railroads etcetera.”

4. Customers may simply refuse to accept damaged goods.

It is possible that the customer may not be willing to accept your damaged goods. If the damage is severe, the customer may not be willing to wait for you and their freight transport carrier to repair and deliver the damaged goods again.

Your business will suffer a loss if you are forced to refund money or provide credit for damaged goods that cannot be repaired.

5. Cargo damage may give rise to issues in relation to international shipments.

If a shipment is damaged during freight transport, it may not be able to clear customs. This can cause issues for both the exporter and the importer.

The consignee will have to pay customs duties on the goods as well as any fines or demurrage charges that are imposed due to delays in loading or unloading of cargo.

6. Damaged cargo can be considered a breach of the contract terms, resulting in the imposition of penalties.

In some cases, the consequence of cargo damage during freight transport is that you have to pay for its repair or replacement. This can be a financial penalty if you’re responsible for the damaged goods and must reimburse your shipping partner or freight forwarder.

However, sometimes the cost of repairing damaged cargo may not even be incurred by you! In such cases, it’s important to know with whom you’re dealing—and make sure they agree on how much responsibility should fall on each party involved in transporting the goods. For example:

• If an exporter delivers products with hidden defects (e.g., rust) which are not revealed until after shipment and leaves no forwarding address behind;

• Or if an importer accepts delivery of damaged goods without protest despite being aware that these were delivered in poor conditions;

• Or if an inland carrier fails to notify their customer about any damage in transit that could have been prevented had proper procedures been followed during loading/unloading operations—then all parties are equally responsible for paying compensation costs incurred due to those damages.

7. It is possible to prevent damage to goods by simply following some basic sensible precautions.

The key to preventing damage is to take care of your goods while using freight transport service. The following are some tips you can follow to ensure the best care for your freight:

• When packing, use strong corrugated cardboard boxes and wrap them with padding material such as bubble wrap or foam sheets. It is important that the items do not move around inside the box during transport.
• Ensure that storage space is clean and dry before loading any goods into it. If possible, also make sure that it has sufficient lighting so that workers can see clearly what they are doing when moving items around inside there.
• It is also important for you to make sure you have correctly assessed how heavy an item may be before deciding how much packing material will be needed for its transportation (i.e., if an item weighs 10kg but only needs 1kg of foam protection then using 10kg will cause unnecessary waste).

Conclusion

We hope this article does not scare you too much. It is certainly possible to avoid many of the problems we have discussed in this article. This can be done by simply being aware of the risks and taking sensible precautions to prevent damage to goods during freight transport.