Navigating the 2026 RFP Season: A Beginner’s Guide to a Successful RFP

Hello everyone and welcome to today's webinar, a beginner's guide to a successful RFP. My name is Gary Grizzle and I'm a senior sales manager here at Flexport and I have been working with clients on their first RFP RFPs or exploring RFPs before for over six years. Um, so really excited to be the host of today's webinar. Today we're going to be covering the freight forwarding RFP basics. This is intended for shippers with minimal experience going through the RFP process. Maybe the first time, maybe you did one last year, but definitely kind of new to it. If you're a seasoned shipper, uh, you know, glad you're here, uh, but you may have more experience. And we have a webinar, um, an advanced RFP webinar on February 25th, which you can find a link to under the docs tab. Before we begin, a couple housekeeping items we have here. Um on the right side, you'll see a sidebar of the u right side of the main stage where you can submit questions. At the end of the presentation, we'll host a Q&A and answer a few of the audience questions questions. I have two experts with me today. So, uh I'll be handing them off to them. So, please, you know, get your questions in early. On that same sidebar, you'll see a tab labeled docs. This is where you can download a copy of today's slides and find other helpful resources. as well as register for the advanced RFP webinar and possibly future webinars as well. Above the stage is a button labeled request RFP. If you'd like help structuring or restructuring your R your RFP bid process, please click that button and notify the Flexport team. Uh we got tons of AES that would love to talk to you here um and see what business needs you have. As you can see uh here now kind of quick brief legal note. Uh please keep in mind that all the information provided in this session is based on the situation we know today. Things change very quickly as you know. Um and of course this might not be tailored exactly to your business needs. We always recommend reaching out to a Flexport expert and discuss your particular situation. As you can see I've got some experts with me and I am Gary Grizzle SA senior sales manager here at Flexport. Uh I've been through a lot of RFBs. I was an AE at one point and now sales leader. And then of course I'm joined by two experts uh in Nathan String um from our ocean team and David Grenovald from our air team. Um definitely hit them up with questions as I mentioned. So here's our agenda uh for today. So we're going to go through it uh pretty quickly and leave a lot of time for those questions at the end. We're going to go through what is logistics RFP season? of course, the RFP framework, uh questions you should be thinking about and considering before running an RFP, um how to evaluate responses through those, the considerations for your business, and of course, what Flexport recommends. Um, as I already mentioned, definitely reach out to us if you have uh questions for your uh particular business. We'd love to chat. What is RFP season? All right. Uh definitely if you're new to this, it can vary um a lot. Of course, RFP is request for a proposal. What we really think about a lot, mainly because of the size of the trade lane and what we'll talk about a lot is the uh Transpacific Eastbound, the TPEB RFP season, which runs from May 1st to April 30th. So, customers are definitely in uh conversations now about their upcoming RFPs and then running through that. That also covers obviously uh the India subcontinent as well. And that's that timeline. So, it's the contract's going to be in place through that RFP uh for that full calendar year. Walking through the RFP framework um and how to think about it from there. So, the RFP framework, right, it's going to start with a bit overview, highlights that you're thinking about from your business, um what's important to you, what you're going to think about. We're going to talk a little bit more about that in greater detail, what to consider, um, and who you're going to, you know, submit your RFP to, what freight forers you're looking at, and of course, an RFI, request for information. Um, once again, looking at your volume, looking at your needs, what you're really looking for u from that, it's going to come out in your RFI, looking at the type of mode that you're looking at. You know, like I mentioned, I've got two experts here from our o ocean and air team. Um, what type of uh RFP are you looking at? Is it going to be air freight, FCL, LCL? What are you looking at? And then of courseal fees. How are you approaching your RFP? Are you looking at this one lane in particular? Multiple lanes, multiple different trade lanes, like is it air and ocean? Are you looking for draage, customs attached? There are a lot of options to consider here. Uh, which is makes it hard for these presentations to be tailored to everyone. But it's definitely something to consider. How are you thinking about it for your team? Um, and how can you make it make sense

for your first RFP? Uh, definitely look at not making it too complicated. Finally, down there at the bottom, it talks about the legend. What I see a lot here, uh, different acronyms, different names for very similar services and trying to compare those apples to apples uh, through your RFP framework can be a challenge. We're always happy to tell help uh, make sure that our clients are getting a fair comparison, but it's something I see a lot to really make sure u you're getting what you're looking for. Similar to that, we're talking about questions to ask uh before running an RFP. Definitely kind of an internal focus here and what you're looking at. The first thing, of course, what's your annual volume? We talked about the timeline. You're going to have this RFP for a full calendar year. What is your expected volume there? What I have seen a lot uh when talking with clients in this regard is really these are typically growing businesses going through their RFP for the first time that forecast can be very tough right it is changing very quickly uh the business needs are evolving seems like you know even next week much less 6 n months later can be very tough so being able to understand your forecast for that year is crucial um and probably a margin of error to have in there uh to really look What are you trying to accomplish with your RFP? Right? There are a lot of options. I've talked to a lot of uh clients who think an RFP go get an annual contract that's the silver bullet to cheaper rates. That's not always the case. Um you can look at it that way, but there are benefits to it uh to looking at it. You want to understand what your long-term forecast is. What are you really trying to accomplish in your business? Um, and of course adding that in with what is your forecasted volume. I would say prior to going to any freight forerter really understanding your criteria to how you're going to make your decision is also crucial. You know, if you go to five, six different forers um with your RFP. You may get pretty good pretty different responses back and you want to have a plan going in as to what you're thinking about. Is it purely going on price? Are you looking for additional technology? um really trying to uncover reliability and sticking to that is crucial. And then of course uh how many rounds and you know until a final decision is made. Also super important one to know your process. And I also think it's really crucial as you're working with a forer um to share your process so that they can accommodate make their rates align and get what you need back in a timely manner. So, you're really getting the answers that you're looking for. Um, I really always kind of see this as a two-way street. You know, I'm talking to my team as a as my AEES and getting all of the information that I'm asking about these questions and that allows us to really give the best proposal that matches your business. So, I think it works on the reverse side for clients to be asking themselves as well. Then, of course, going back to these RFP responses, I hinted on this a little bit, but they can be very similar and different. uh and honestly kind of tough to tell the difference. So things to consider uh throughout the entire RFP and the proposal that you get. Of course, you know, typically going to see some type of rate sheet agreements, but you want to think about of course what's the visibility, what's the workflow of this for and this proposal that you're seeing. Um what's important to you? Of course, going back to those questions you ask yourself before submitting the RFP is very important. What kind of support are you going to get through this? Right? You're signing up for a year with a supporter. It's crucial to be thinking about that. It's easy to just see a sticker price or a rate without really um you know thinking about nine months later how's the service going to be? What's that impact for your business? Uh is very important. And then of course transparent cost and reporting. Uh as I mentioned the different acronyms, different names for similar services. really figuring that out so that you have a great understanding and you're able to forecast your business uh looking forward because this is once again it's going to be a calendar year and then of course like an end toend logistics solutions. What are you looking for? This goes a little bit to adding on is you know is it dreage final mile uh any type of fulfillment services what are you really looking to accomplish and what services do you need? And you got to put all that together to really evaluate your different um responses and depending on how many you have once again and that goes back into how many rounds are you going to do uh through that process as well. So section five here RFP considerations uh is where I get to hand it off to the experts. Um and Nathan Strange should be joining me uh on stage here. All right, thank you very much, Gary. I'll take it from here. Uh, my name is Nathan Strang. I'm director of ocean freight for Southwest Region here at

Flexport. Um, and I'm going to talk a little bit about our ocean freight considerations when it comes to launching an RFP. Um, these are very basic considerations. Uh, anyone who has any familiarity of course knows that, um, there's a lot of it depends when it comes to ocean freight. And I am going to be focusing mostly on speaking uh on how the market moves in the trans-Pacific market, but a lot of this does apply to other trade lanes. And in fact, most of this applies to other trade lanes. So the first thing I think we need to talk about is a little bit of a common misconception in that the fixed rate is intended to be the cheapest possible rate at all times. Um so that is uh is not true. Um the idea of the fixed rate is to give you a baseline rate that is for planning purposes and for a baseline load of cargo and we'll talk a little bit about what a base load looks like and how we kind of uh view that here in a couple later slides. So it's not always the cheapest and what we're looking here um is a graph that shows you how the fixed rate and the floating rate moved for the 2025 shipping year. So as you can see the light green line there that is your fixed rate and the dark blue line that is your floating rate. At times the fixed rate was very advantageous versus the floating rate especially during our peak seasons uh in times of you know market stresses. It provided a kind of a relief to that. But then as the market progresses you can see that the fixed rate moves above or it really doesn't move above the floating rate move below moves above etc throughout the year but it remains relatively stable on the fixed side. So what you really want to do there is to do your homework. You want to think about you know where do you think your budget for freight's going to be? What kind of a number what freight spend do you want to have on a per container level for your cargo? And look at that and see how that would progress throughout the year. Is that a rate that would work for you or do you really need to be closer to the market? Um there are other options out there if you want to stay closer to the you know closer to the floating market and not necessarily be on a fixed but you're looking at kind of your overall cost and what your best option is. So um there's other considerations here as well. While this is the Zanetta average, you know, peak season search charges and things like that aren't fully uh displayed here. So the fixed rate isn't always fixed as well. um it does move uh to some degree and a lot of that is due to your supply and demand considerations even on the fixed rates. So why does this matter and and you know as you're planning out as well is when you ship uh so looking at off seasons when can you take advantage of the lower rate when is it going to be higher and when should you plan on that um and looking at what you want your how you want to manage your rate throughout the year. So, if the rate isn't always consistent and it isn't always the cheapest, then why do we want to use it? I mean, it's financial forecasting is the big one. So, even though that there's going to be things like peak s peak season search charges and slight fluctuation in the fixed rate, um it is going to be the most consistent rate throughout the shipping year. So, you can forecast really well. If you're the type of business that needs to know now how much your rates are going to be in November, uh this is a really great way to do that. You can forecast out and have a freight spend idea of what you're going to be paying throughout the entirety of the shipping year. um you're reducing your exposure during peak months. Uh you are uh in those those huge spikes around world events uh that you're looking at there. Uh that moves the needle for a lot for the floating markets. You can smooth yourself out and you're not really fluctuating as much with the market. So the long range cost planning really helps there. Also looking at things like sailing consistency. Uh generally when you lock in a rate, you're locking in your sailing dates, your sailing weeks. So you're looking at your predictability to your suppliers so they know what they can always expect. Um your suppliers also always know how much volume they have available and what they can uh and what they have ability to move on. So pitfalls and I'm going to keep saying this always over and over again. It's called a fixed rate but it is never really fully fixed. Uh it does move with the market to some degree. Again not as much as the floating market. Uh there could be situational search charges. Uh we saw that with the Red Sea. Um, we can see that with congestion search charges. If the market really gets backed up, there can be some situational search charges that come in there. Uh, and then there's another one, loading depending on run rate. Uh, I'm going to cover this uh in the next slide, but it really matters, you know, that you load consistently and to your plan in order to be able to move against the rate. So the it it's a little bit you know not exactly parallel to kind of how the airlines work in that there's a little bit of an overbooking situation and due to seasonality um of shipping habits of different types of commodities. So when the market becomes very congested and everyone's kind of moving there's a bit of an overbooking situation and that's really kind of what drives the peak season search charges. So, uh, having a consistent run rate and having a consistent load rate is very important to being able to have access to fixed

space. And then sailing consistency, you know, obviously the ships are still going to have their schedules, right? So, um, while we do want to say like, hey, you know, this is a weekly amount of cargo, um, sometimes the ships don't sail weekly and they get bunched. Um, so it's it can be a little bit challenging there and you can see some bunching of cargo. I will also say that you know it we it sometimes fluctuates a little bit with manufacturing, right? So if your manufacturing is fluctuating, you may not be able to surge cargo as well on these rates. So I was talking a little bit about seasonality and kind of how you plan your cargo. So volume uh considerations, uh we understand that everybody isn't, you know, perfect on their predictions as to when they're going to ship. In fact, when we get a an RFP request for on the ocean side, what we do is we take the annual number and we divide it by basically 52. So you can barely see it. There's a green line there that just goes straight across at the 100 level, right? Like that's what um is kind of the bid cargo. Um what we do cons take then is we look at, you know, your history if you're if you're moving with us, what your history is with a client or what your commodity kind of moves as and we kind of take that number and then we come up with that red line which is what our prediction is. And our job as a forwarder, as an NVO is to kind of smooth all of our red lines to get as close to that green line as possible. But then we know that when in actuality it's that blue line. It's going to be those ups and downs uh throughout the year. What we do want to see though is some level of consistency. So we're looking for like six to 10 TEU. So 20 foot equivalent units or that would be 3 to five 40 foot containers per week throughout the year. Generally uh one per port at least. So for multiple ports, you know, you can have one moving out of different ports. Why is that? Well, the ships sale weekly. So, as we're bidding this out to the carriers, as we're taking our value to the carriers, what we're trying to do is help them fill their ships, right? So, those ships are moving weekly, we kind of need cargo that moves weekly. So, if you have that base load of cargo, that um stuff that moves all the time, skew replenishment stuff, nonseasonal goods, those are really great for RFP um and really great to lock in price. Whereas if you have kind of more variance in your year, if that blue line didn't track as well against the prediction, if you had a lot more spikes, you may need to move some on fixed or some on floating. Um, so minor variations in demand are okay, but heavy variations in demand uh generally don't pair well with something like a fixed contract. All right. So, a couple uh a couple other key considerations is kind of when do rates what is a contract? When do rates go valid? So Asia and India to North America is May 1st through April 30th. So we are in the middle of that season right now. Generally we're launching in the beginning of March uh to sign in April. Other trades tend to be calendar year. So if you're moving on the far east westbound to Europe, if you're moving on transatlantic, those tend to be calendar year, but we can make accommodations uh to those bids throughout the year. There are other options to annual. There are quarterly and six-month rates or semianual rates. Um, quarterly is not available on all trades. Depending on when the quarter is, the rates could look very much like the current fixed rates. Um, but those are better for things like projects. Um, if you have acute seasonality, things like that where you can contract for a shorter period of time. Um, or if you have high, you know, higher variance in your in your rate fluctuation, if you're predicting higher variance you may want to concentrate some of your cargo into a particular quarter and then bid that out separately. six month also a little bit stranger, but we do see it where it's like half year. Again, this tends to be commodity based and more and for more seasonal cargo. So, again, the bid season really starts in March. Uh some are even starting now uh with starting to line their bids up. Um but really what we would like to see is for Oceanside anyways is a bid that starts around the March time frame uh to sign towards the middle of April with implementation of the contracts on May 1st. So kind of to to bring it all together, um it's not a totally fixed rate. There's always fluctuation. We have bunker, we have uh loading search charges, um we have situational search charges, standard carrier search charges that all apply as well. Those things could vary uh to some degree um and not be considered in. Also, look out for anything that's subject to GRI. That's not really a fixed rate. That is a floating rate that's being sold as a fixed rate. Um, but if you have that base load of cargo, if you have that predictability to some degree within some of your port pairs or all of your port pairs, if you are looking for a long range um, predictor of where you think the freight market's going to be and what you think your rates are going to be, um, I still believe that this, you know, RFP fixed is a really great way to take some of your cargo uh, and put it onto a fixed price contract. So, those are our considerations for ocean and I'm going to hand it over to uh, David for air. Thank you very much. Hello everybody. So without further ado, we're going to look at what an RFP can

look like in air freight, which shares some commonality with ocean, but is also quite different both in the way that you guys as shippers are going to approach it, uh, but also a little bit in the timing. Um, and the uh the elements that you're going to want to take into consideration when it comes to timing is uh the air freight market can be uh a little bit more dynamic at times than the ocean market. So the first advice that we would give shippers is and we give clients when they come to us to do an RFP for air is we try to avoid peak or turbulent moments in the market uh to go out to the airline and ask for rates. Um the second thing that is quite similar to uh to ocean RFPs is of course you want to be looking at your volumes and the volumes that you have and the predictability of those volumes is very much going to define the sort of pricing that you're going to be going after. And so I'm not going to go back on what my colleagues have expertly explained uh when it comes to understanding your volume, understanding your regularity. Uh but what I will say though is what each price structure or rate structure in air freight uh will actually match in terms of necessity. Um so the first thing that we can look at is a fixed rate deal. Uh and what this is going to do for you is that it's going to guarantee space. Um, some of you may have been there during our last freight market update where we spoke about the air market and we said that even though the rates are rather stable right now, um, we do anticipate some capacity constraints specifically on certain lanes um, and especially of course coming out of Asia and Southeast Asia most particularly. Um, so if you do have predictable volumes for air, uh, then we strongly encourage you to look at longer term deals and potentially fixed rate deals. Um, what it also going to do, uh, is that it's going to guarantee the rate for that extended period. So that just like in Ocean, just like Nathan said, it's going to give you visibility and predictability um, on your budget. Now, if you don't have a lot of volumes going for air and you're really using air as a backup uh when ocean is no longer possible, well then you can be looking at what we call short-term deals. So, this will give you uh potentially a monthly or quarterly validity. um it would usually not guarantee space even though they are special cases and we have seen a quarterly deal where we were able to guarantee space for customer. Of course, it also very much depend on what kind of commodity you're shipping. Uh but if you cannot commit to volumes, there's still a way to get those monthly or quality rates for your air freight. Um now we have also something which we call bid pricing which is a bit of a hybrid between the fixed and the short-term deal. What this will usually give shippers is what we call a soft commitment for capacity. So this is for customers looking for flexibility. They know that they're going to have volumes that need to go uh via air, but they can't literally commit to the dates just yet. And last but not least, we have something that we've seen more and and Nathan and Gary can probably come back to that because I think this is something that we see a lot in Ocean Freight is what we call the marketbased capacity deal or the indexed uh deal, which means that this will actually guarantee the space just like a long-term deal, but your rate will fluctuate following a public index. uh which is usually something that customers like a lot because they kind of get best of both worlds. on the one hand they will get this guaranteed space and on the other hand they have the guarantee that their rate will actually follow the market and since nobody has a crystal ball even though we do a a very hard job here at Flexport trying to predict the market based on our analysis um this is something that customers have uh have appreciated uh and especially in recent times the one message that I would like you guys to leave this webinar with when it comes to air freight is to really think of your relationship with your forwarder as a partnership meaning that you know if you are able to commit long-term this is great because you know even though the market is relatively stable right now there will be a peak season this year again we spoke about it at the last FMU webinar uh we see a lot

of demand for AI hardware ecommerce um and you're going to want to be able to guarantee space if you have regular predictable volumes in air freight later uh in the year. Now, if you don't have predictable volumes, if you have irregular volumes, uh then you can resort to those shorter term can be monthly, can be bi-weekly, um and that will still allow you to get uh the best rates available on the market. So, that's pretty much it for the air freight. And now I will invite Gary back on stage. — Thanks, David. All right, we're going to talk a little bit about flexport recommendations. I kind of want to echo something that David just said and talking about viewing it as a partnership. Definitely goes for uh air and ocean side of it. It goes to the questions you got to ask yourself prior. Um and really sharing that as much as possible with, you know, the people that are you're submitting your RFP to. the more information, you know, that my sales team has and the better they can provide a solution to actually what you're looking for. So, really being able to share that information is huge. And like I said, when David said that, it kind of jumped out and I made a mental note there. So, um, some recommend recommendations for looking at it. I'm also going to make a little plug for some more questions on the right side. U, definitely hit us with it. I'm going to get both the experts back on so, uh, you can hear from them. But first of all, make sure the service matches the expectations, right? You want to uh really look at the finer points of it. Ask a ton of questions. Uh so that you're going to get that contract that matches what you need. Um right, looking at the different inco terms, what are the transit times? What is the route pairings that you're looking at? Um just because a rate, you know, looks good, there could be a lot of nuances to that you want to explore so it really aligns for you. um as you see any every little detail is very important um and can really lead to a rough year and you know some freight and some movements that don't work for your business. So, um, definitely meet with your RFP participants, right? We get a lot of these that, you know, it's a ton of emails back and forth. I think it's tough to kind of handle that first, uh, recommendation all via emails. Uh, there are a lot of nuances here, uh, to definitely explore, uh, and go back and forth on and ask a lot of questions. And then, of course, uh, anything to discuss up front. you know, if there's technology provided, definitely look at that, how that's going to work for your business, what users need to be involved. Um, what other stakeholders at your company uh need to see this, need to explore. Uh, definitely ask questions, what KPIs are important to your business. Like I said, looking at the transit time versus the cost, maybe some routings for that. Definitely on the customer service side, what kind of support do you get at origin, wherever your origins may be? And definitely, of course, at destination. Um then of course having a backup plan it's going to be crucial uh for these first RFPs are a lot as I mentioned the forecast can be very tough uh looking at it for these growing businesses going through this for the first time. So definitely you know have a contingency plan run that by your partner that you're you know you've awarded this business to uh and I think even once in it and that forecast really sharing updates along the way it's going to last for a year. the more you can share with your um chosen provider, the more they're going to be able to accommodate what you need. So, definitely crucial to handle all that. Um, and of course, we have plenty of Flexport experts here uh to talk to you about that as well. All right, we're going to go to Q&A, which means Nathan and David are going to um answer most these questions. I'm just going to be the host here for these. Um, we got everybody back here. So, um, let me see. Um, I'm going to kick this one to you, Nathan. Uh, we got a question here. It's, you know, what time frame do you recommend for a yearly contract and a little bit about exit clauses as well? — Yeah. Uh, time frame. I covered this a little bit, but basically starting kind of now, especially if this is your first RFP, what you really want to do is start introducing yourselves uh to providers, um, to forwarders that you want to work with, to NVOs um, to Flexport, of course, um, and start letting us know about your business, right? So, it's it is a relationship as Gary said. So, we want to learn about your business. how you're moving your freight. We want to learn about what you know how your freight interacts with your supply chain. Um because it's not just about the rate. It's about putting together a full package for you. something that moves your supply chain, right? So, um starting about now, but really when you want to start really kind of getting into the meat of it is about the uh fee, end of February, beginning of March time frame. That's really where you want to start uh looking at rates, uh figuring out which providers you want to use. You usually go about two to three rounds. Uh so they'll submit rates, you'll give feedback, submit rates again, get feedback, and kind of in the third round is where you're pairing it down and really just kind of getting into the nuance on it. As far as exit clauses, um all things

are negotiable, right? It depends on kind of how you structure your deal. There are certain contracts that have what's called dead freight to them, which maybe for a discounted rate or a very specific type of sailing or something, you're gonna you're willing to kind of agree to um come up with a minimum amount of cargo or else you have to kind of pay a penalty. Those will have different exit clauses other than kind of your generic shipping contracts, which we see. I hate to say it, they don't really have an exit clause. Um it's something that you can kind of walk away from. We do not recommend that. that can impact ability to get future rates. But it's something that you should talk about with your forer. What does it look like, you know, for non what does non-performance look like? What does uh if I decide to move away from this contract at a later date, what does that look like to you? And that's something that is really important to cover in your terms and conditions and to read see what those mean. But uh start now and again, like I said, u know your terms and conditions and understand what you're kind of signing up for with your forwarder. — Awesome. Well, I'm probably gonna throw this one back to you, Nathan, but I can read it for you. Um, what's your thought on quarterly ocean RFP versus standard yearly on a normal cycle? Little bit of concern about RFP, you know, exhaustion quarterly — and let you handle it from there. — Yeah. I I think that's a little bit of is the exhaustion, right? Like it it to try and run a quarterly RFP all the time can be a little bit exhausting. Again, I think it is for certain commodities uh that move heavily during a certain part of the year. I think it could be beneficial. So, generally what it is that you're moving quarterly rates for one quarter of the year, maybe two quarters of the year. Um, and the rest of the time you're on the spot market because you're not moving a lot. I think of things like just off the top of my head like Christmas trees maybe. You know, they're going to move all kind of in one quarter. So, you're going to have a heavy amount of cargo, but for the rest of the year you're really kind of just doing replenishment maybe or or returns or things like that. Uh, so I think the quarterly can work out for that. Or if you shift trade lanes, if you're a company that manufactures out of one location one part of the year or another location another you know you're moving to Europe at certain parts of the year heavily and then to South America then a quarterly rate could work out there while you have kind of steady annual volume from your supplier. It doesn't line up necessarily with the destination. So those are types you want to do that. Um some try and use it to stay closer to the market. I don't think that necessarily pans out but again it's a thing that we can talk about depending on why do you want quarterly rate versus a long versus an annual rate and something that we can work out uh together. — I think a lot about the quarterly too is like depends on what's going on in the market uh for me. Uh so you know I jump back to the extreme COVID times quarterly rates didn't exist uh you know type stuff and the market's a little bit softer uh there's definitely some room for from for some quarterly solutions there. Um I think I can handle this one. We got a question just about the rates, you know, looking at like 15-day um expiration date. So, that's typically talking about the floating market for that um and the GRI that happen um every two weeks. In this, we're talking a little bit more about uh the fixed markets via the uh RFPs. So, kind of the knack counts u things like that. Another ocean freight question. Somebody's got to hit David with some air questions here. So, um, for ocean freight, Nathan, obviously coming to you for ocean freight, how much volume would you suggest on a certain lane where would make sense to secure a fixed rate versus going on the spot market? — Yeah, the the basic what we say is like one container a week kind of thing, right? So, if you can give us one container a week, we can work out a rate. Generally, we want to see something around, you know, 5 to 10 is better. But the idea is do you have weekly cargo? So thinking less about the exact number, it's do you have weekly cargo? Because that's kind of what the idea of a fixed rate is to fill the ships uh to give them a base load of cargo. So do you have weekly cargo or are you heavily seasonal? Again, if there are parts of the year where you kind of go close to zero, that's something that could be worked out in the deal. That's our job as a forwarder to kind of smooth all of our clients together into one number. But that's kind of what we want to see. And when we say one, it's generally on a single port pair. So if you look at Shanghai to Los Angeles or you're looking at Yantan to New York, those are the types of things it's like on that pairing because at the end of the day a physical container has to go onto a physical ship. I have to try and you know place goods onto a boat. So therefore I need to know how much space I need to ask for from the carriers on a weekly basis. So we gather all that together and we bring it to the carriers and we ask them for that space. So that's why we ask for some of those, you know, those consistencies in sailings, but it can be as low as as one for sure. Um, depending, you know, on the commodity and the lane and how you want to structure your contract. — What I've seen when there's one, it's like I said, you get one per week and any changes is very tough. Doesn't give you a lot of margin of error. So that that's a lot of what Nathan's saying is having more than that, it

gives you uh some flexibility along the way. All right. Uh, next question. Uh, what would you advise an importer that has multiple freight forers in terms of RFP and diversifying? David, we're going to treat this like an air question and then, uh, we can answer kind of from an ocean thing. If there's anything else to add. — Absolutely. Well, you know, you have different strategies and I don't think there is a one-sizefits-all kind of answer to this question. Um you know we we've talked a lot about volumes and of course I think it starts there. You know I think you have to look at how much volume you're moving. Um on the the immediate answer would be of course it makes sense to diversify your forwarders so that you diversify your risk. However, if your volumes aren't uh you know substantial enough, then what you're really going to be doing is that you're going to look like a small uh shipper to your forwarder and you're not going to be giving them a lot of leverage when they are negotiating with carriers in your name. So, I would first look at volumes. Then, I would also look at sort of network capabilities from the different forwarders that you're contemplating. you know, I mean, some forwarders are notoriously good on certain trades, other are more generalistic. Um, so I would say, you know, look at your volumes, look at the network capabilities of your forwarders. Uh, look at whether or not they have boots on the grounds in the countries of origin or destination that are most important to you. Um, and based on this, you can sort of allocate uh, you know, you can have different what we call award strategy. So, you know, you can have an award strategy that is a winner takes all uh or you can have an award strategy that is kind of cherrypicking by lanes and like I said, I think it would be a byproduct of both your volumes and the geography of your supply chain. — I think pretty similar to the ocean setup, but Nathan, anything to add? — No, I think that's about it. I It also comes down to kind of how much work do you want to do, right? If you have five, six, 10 providers, then you have to manage five, six, 10 relationships, right? you have five, six, 10 tracking solutions, right? So, so how do you manage kind of visibility across those? How do you coordinate? How do you plan that out to different shippers? If you have multiple shippers, multiple lanes, u, for me, of course, I think simple is better. Um, it comes down to the capabilities that you're looking for. At the end of the day, what are you trying to purchase, right? What do you see the value of the relationship with that forwarder? Um, and then kind of going into that, I would say that it can be difficult to kind of juggle if you're doing, you know, multiple forwarders on the same lane. It can get pretty confusing and difficult to manage real fast. But, you know, all of David's points, obviously, you know, do your research and figure out how you want to use your different freight partners. — I definitely agree that I've talked to a lot of clients where having multiple for freight forwarders is almost a job in itself. So, um I think I can handle this one here, but for shippers with lower and or inconsistent volumes, what factors can compensate for not meeting a typical minimum volume in RFP? I mean, the floating market's still valuable. Like, you know, there's definitely the benefits of an RFP, but that it isn't some magic solution for your supply chain, and if you can get there, everything, you know, is perfect. Um, so I would say that without knowing any details. I know Nathan talked a little bit about seasonality um and some of those variables that we don't know but besides that it's mostly going to be um the floating market so you can handle that your shipments will move um there are benefits you know on the rates at times for that um but that's mostly what I see there I mean anything to add David Nathan — I think you covered most of it again like yeah follow your seasonality know your seasonalities I think that that's an important one and communicate that up front. — Awesome. All right, cool. Next question here. Do ocean and air freight share similar peak season at the start of the year and in June July? David, I'm going let you handle the air side first. — Yes, absolutely. Um, so, you know, I would actually um I'm going to focus on the two periods that the person asked about and I would also add something about the end of the year because I think we see also a difference there. Um, so when it comes to uh Chinese New Year, I would say of course both ocean and air are going to peak, but they're not going to peak at the same time. Ocean usually starts peaking about a month before Chinese New Year because obviously there is a much longer lead time for ocean. And air is going to be more for lastm minute needs for whatever cargo wasn't able to get on the boat and where shippers really want to get their last order before their factory closes. Um, in the summer, June, July, it's going to be a little different because ocean is going to peak as the importers are preparing for back to school and holiday season and they're going to start ramping up their imports.

For air, it's a little different. It's actually usually a lull moment. It's one of the cheaper time of the year to import. Um and then of course we have you know the Q4 uh situation where usually ocean is going to slow down around October, November. I speak under Nathan's control of course and that's where air is going to start hitting its highest peak uh you know for electronics, e-commerce and you know similar to what we're seeing right before Chinese New Year. You're going to have, you know, all your retailers or people serving retailers that have lastm minute needs for the holidays and they're going to start shipping air because they need to make sure that their products are on the rack for the busiest season of the year. — Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, it usually what happens is as the ocean peak is starting to come down, the air peak starts to ramp. And that just makes sense when you think about transit times. um you know on the trans-Pacific market it takes 20 daysish to go from Asia to the west coast 30 to 40 days to go to the east coast. So you know once you kind of miss the window on ocean you're going to start moving over you know towards air and air can wait a little bit longer because it's shorter time frame. So generally that's what you see as ocean starts to ramp down air starts to ramp up. — Awesome. So we're getting close on time. We'll see how quickly uh we answered this one. I'm going to kind of skip around here. I think this is a great question here. So, how does the carrier ensure space allocation for fixed rate customers during peak season with a fixed rate agreement? I'm concerned if we risk if losing booking priority space with a carrier during peak season. Nathan, I'm going to let you handle that and then we go to air. That might be our final question. — Yeah. uh th this is a good one to bring you know to kind of plug our next webinar which is a little bit more of the advanced uh the if this is the 101 that's the 400 and it'll get a little bit more into this but to the basic of it so this is where performance really matters right so if you're looking at you know that slide I showed that was kind of like your bid volume versus your assumed volume versus your actual volumes you want to try and get your actual volumes to be as smooth as possible um if you're looking at the largest shippers in the world that's kind of what they do there's very little fluctuation in their monthly shipping. Um, so it provides more predictability so the carriers know what to set aside. The but of course there's always going to be those who peak and they're going to want to push more onto their fixed rates during those peak seasons above what they've been shipping normally, right? So they're going to want to surge and that's where peak season search charges come in. So that's where, you know, we're going to come, you know, the supply and demand does play into that. And the peak season search charge is still going to be lower than what you're seeing in the spot market. it's still going to provide a lower rate, but what that peak season search charge does, it provides access to more space on the vessels for all of the shippers who are now moving together as a market. So, there are different ways to mitigate those peak season search charges. There's different ways to predict them. Um, there's a lot of different peak season searchcharge strategies around that, but that's how they manage access um to more fixed space at those times of year. Now, there's not an infinite amount of space, of course, on the ships. a ship is, you know, a 12,000 TEU ship can only carry 12,000 TEUs. So, you know, that it does kind of drive the demand there against the supply, but there are ways to mitigate it and it generally does end up lower than the what you're seeing in the spot market. — Okay, great. Um, I think that's going to wrap it up here for today's webinar. Really appreciate all the great questions. We're sorry we couldn't get to all of them. We do have them obviously unless anonymous. So we can follow up here from Flexport. Really appreciate everybody's time. Definitely if you know some of these advanced questions that Nathan said the 400 level uh definitely join our webinar uh late in February. And thank you again for joining today. Uh really appreciate it and hope you found it uh informative. Thanks everyone. Byebye.