June Connected
20th June, 2023
Dear Customers,
Welcome to the June edition of Connected, the team at SCC are pleased to be able to keep you informed on all matters related to International trade, if there are any particular stories you would like us to look into and write about you are most welcome to drop us a message at sales@sccargo.com.au, we’d love to hear from you.
Australia and UK Free Trade Agreement
The Australia UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA) has commenced from May 31, 2023, with a simple documentation requirement. Eligible goods include those imported after this date and goods imported before this date where customs duty has not yet been determined. The FTA provides significant benefits for Australian and UK trade. We are looking forward to supporting our clients to maximise your opportunities. For assistance and inquiries, please contact our customs team at customs@sccargo.com.au.
Trade Shows
The SCC team has been busy at some recent trade shows attending the Workplace Health and Safety show in Brisbane and the Naturally Good trade show in Sydney. It was great to see a few of our customers who had booths and were having very successful shows.
SCC eCommerce 3PL
Our purpose built 3PL facility located in Brisbane has proven to be very successful with our customers, to the extent we are close to capacity. The overwhelming response from customers is that they can allocate the time originally spent on packing orders to focus on marketing and other business development strategies. If you are an online retailer, consider how much of your facility you are actually using, and what more could you be doing if you were free of this fixed cost. At SCC our 3PL warehouse has been developed to support online retailers but also specialise in tailoring services to ensure you retain that personal touch to your buyers. If you are wanting to get back time to focus on your sales, marketing and product development, also only pay for the space and services that you require, now is a good time to consider stepping away from the warehouse fixed costs. We would love to help more online retailers free up time to keep growing their business, to view our facility or request further details please contact us at sales@sccargo.com.au
SCC staff leading the way with continuous training
Congratulations to June, Aaron, Denis, Deneal, Mark, Taffy and Vanessa on their progress towards becoming the highest-level certified individuals for Cargowise! Achieving this certification demonstrates your dedication to using the CW operating system at its optimum level, which will undoubtedly lead to greater efficiencies within the business.
By taking the time to become certified, each of you is paving the way for concentrating on more meaningful tasks that directly benefit our valued customers. Your commitment to continuous improvement is wonderful, and it will undoubtedly enhance our services to our fantastic customers.
Sea Freight Update
We would normally be pointing towards peak season at this time of the year, rates would be increasing regularly as we lead into July/August, however with the continued decline in retail sales and warehouses globally remaining heavily stocked there are strong signs that the usual peak season will not see the increases in rates that International trade is used to. There will be some increases, but we do not expect them to be significant. Shipping lines are continuing to roll out blanks sailings with the intent to create greater demand from fewer sailings. The blank sailings imposed by the shipping lines give greater reason to use a freight forwarder like SCC. In conjunction with our overseas partners we help you to navigate through the various sailing options and unlike the shipping lines we are not locked in to the one service, one of the key lessons we all learnt from the Covid challenges, is that you do require a range of options when moving your cargo globally.
Air freight Update
Air freight capacity continues to improve, and this brings a corresponding reduction in air freight rates, we do expect some trade lanes to drop a bit further in the next few months. As previously referenced the airlines are not yet back to pre-covid volumes but they are at around 85% and will continue to trend upwards.
SCC supporting the local community
SCC has once again provided sponsorship to QLD Police Legacy for the Child Safety Handbook. This booklet gets distributed to various schools across South Brisbane and the Gold Coast to bring greater awareness to a wide range of topics such as Body Positive, Home Environment, Drugs, Personal Space, Basic First Aid, Bullying, Cyber Bullying etc.
The handbook is printed in an effort to make the information available to kids, parents, teachers and caregivers.
Thanks
With the end of the financial year quickly approaching, we would like to take the time to thank all our wonderful customers for their support in the 2022/23 financial year, we are very pleased to be able to support your businesses and look forward to continuing our great relationships.
