/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>1544017

Hah, we'll see. Given how low the bar is set, though, I think we'll compare pretty favorably. Intra-Russia shipping usually isn't a problem, it's just anything where goods have to cross a border, that's an issue. You have to understand how bad the situation is in Russia when it comes to that industry, that a manufacturer would ask a supplier rather than a dedicated shipping company/customs broker to do their logistics for them because the latter have proven themselves so incompetent at their jobs. I don't really know if an analogous non-political example exists in the west, because all the markets over here are pretty well served. I guess it would be like asking a biologist to perform medical services for your family because the local doctors can't stop killing patients.

We've had Russian international shipping companies screw us on contractual obligations e.g. compensation, lie to us, send things to the wrong place, etc etc etc. We've pretty much run down the list of Russian companies that offer those services and haven't found a single good one. The latest company lied to us about submitting customs documents and when called on the lie cited the rainy weather as the reason they couldn't submit the documents for a week, aka send an email. Shipment's ~1.5 weeks late now, thankfully this is a generic stock request and not supplies for some guy trying to complete a tender. Anyway, given our experiences with the Russian intl. shipping companies I think we can do a better job, and apparently our clients think we can do a better job too. So we're going to give it a shot. Who knows, maybe this is just insanely complicated and only looks like basic sub-contracting and scheduling and we're getting in over our heads, but we'll see.