Lack of truck drivers
Volume fluctuations
CO2 emissions
Transportation costs
Cargo loss
Lack of drivers
From door-to-door on time
85% of the furniture demand in the EU is satisfied by EU production, making intra-European import very important.
Unfortunately, delivery times in the European Union are getting longer as the Union is facing a shortage of almost 150,000 truck drivers and there is regulations limiting the number of hours drivers can be on the road. Border closures and high congestion on the roads are also adding to the problem.
With multimodal transport, Unifeeder finds the best combination of sea, rail and road, circumventing the above mentioned problems and giving you a smart and flexible logistics solution to get your cargo to the destination on time.
Volume fluctuations
Scale your capacity when needed
Due to the size of our vessel fleet, extensive European network and multiple sailings per week, Unifeeder is able to quickly adapt our flows in order to cope with last minute orders, changes or delays by adding or rerouting cargo on an as-needed basis.
Whether you need to reduce cargo flow, increase volume or add new dropoff locations, multimodal and Unifeeder have the ability to scale far better than trucks because even the furniture industry experiences fluctuations in production and demand.
CO2 emissions
Make the furniture industry greener
The furniture industry is currently working hard to become more sustainable. Materials are being recycled, and researchers are developing new sustainable materials. While all of these initiatives are excellent, sustainability can also be achieved through transport.
Multimodal transport can contribute tremendously to reducing the carbon footprint of European transportation and the furniture industry. Shipping containers by sea provides a greener alternative to conventional, overland transport with significantly smaller CO2 emissions per tonne/kilometre carried (16 g CO2/tonne per km. vs. 22 g for rail and 62 g. for truck).
Transportation costs
Competitive pricing, customised solutions
With new producers from emerging/transitioning economies easily entering the European furniture market, price competitiveness is a crucial driver of success, in order to retain market shares.
Multimodal is a cost-effective alternative to traditional road transport, as a single vessel can transport the equivalent of 700 truckloads and will keep your prices down across the supply chain. Large-scale operations and efficient utilisation of vessels enable highly competitive prices while allowing for flexible, door-to-door solutions.
For example, going from Norway to Belgium is approximately 25% cheaper by multimodal than truck only.
Cargo loss
Transport your cargo safely on a vessel
In Q3 of 2019, 4,7% of cargo stolen in EMEA was furniture, but only 1% of all cargo theft happened on a vessel.
At sea, your cargo is moved in sealed, steel containers from door-to-door without any handling of the cargo in between. Thereby you lower the risk of contamination and loss of your cargo as you reduce the human touchpoints along the ride. Additionally, our containers can be equipped with high security seals which are stronger and more difficult to tamper with.