By Joseph A. Mann Jr.
Several years ago, two freight forwarders in Spain found to their dismay that they had lost a client.
The customer called their Barcelona company after hours to urgently request information on a freight shipment — transportation schedules, costs, alternative ocean routes — but could not reach the two agents and switched to a competing company.
The two Spaniards — Iván Tintore and Carlos Hernández (pictured here) — decided they needed to offer a more efficient way to meet the needs of their international clientele, who move large volumes of cargo each year by ocean and air freight.
As a result, they developed iContainers, a pioneering online service that allows shippers anywhere to log onto iContainers.com 24 hours a day, search thousands of transportation options, and find the best routes, schedules and rates for moving their merchandise.
“We realized that the freight-forwarding industry was old-fashioned and needed to change,” said Hernández, iContainers’ co-founder and global managing director. “We are like Kayak.com and Expedia.com, but instead of moving people, we move freight.”
The two developed the first Internet-based freight-forwarding system in Barcelona at the end of 2007, secured financing from venture capital firms and set up the new company. “We offer our clients the option of searching for the best routes for ocean or air freight, and quoting and booking online,” Hernández said. “Essentially, you log onto iContainers.com and compare the cost of shipping goods from point A to point B, anywhere in the world.”
One of the main pages on the iContainers website, showing a cargo vessel loaded with multicolored containers in the background, summarizes what the company offers: “SEARCH. CHOOSE. BOOK. Best rates guaranteed.”
The company helps clients move freight throughout Europe, North and South America, Africa, Asia and Australia via sea and air, charging a fee for its services.