Averitt Express expands its LCL offerings out of China

Freight transportation and logistics services provider Averitt Express recently announced that it has taken steps to augment its less-than-container (LCL) service from China in the form of two new weekly departures to Memphis, Tenn. and Charleston, SC.

The new departures are from the Port of Yantian in the Guandong Province and leverage Averitt’s existing Asia-Memphis Express, which is comprised of ocean and rail services designed to reduce processing times by as much as 10 days.

Averitt Express Vice President of Customs Brokerage Bill Ramia told LM that there were multiple drivers for this LCL expansion.

“The Averitt client base consists of both manufacturers and retailers looking for fast, dependable service out of China on LCL shipments,” he said. “By establishing our own direct consolidation service to Memphis over 8 years ago, and Charleston more recently, we are able to meet our clients’ requirements for fast, dependable sourcing on many of their shipments without the high expense of air freight. These services have been the cornerstone of our international strategy since day 1, as they maximize the strengths of a traditional non-asset NVOCC with significant assets of a best-in-class LTL provider. Together, we are able to offer Averitt clients something they cannot get anywhere else; a one-stop solution for the kind of shipments that previously had to stop in multiple places for several days, and often longer, before delivery.”

Memphis, he explained, is the linchpin its our Asia-Memphis Express service for two main reasons:
-it is the main inland point serviced by all of the steamship lines for cargo moving from the west coast to the South, allowing Averitt to bypass any need for its clients’ cargo to be handled on the West Coast prior to its inland movement; and
-Memphis is also the hub of the Averitt service network between the Southeast and Southwest.  With literally hundreds of trucks moving daily to and from Memphis, it is able to offer the fastest turnaround for LCL shipments in the industry to our customers in both primary market areas

As for Charleston, he said that it also offers multiple advantages, with one being that it is ideally located to serve the high volume East Coast markets and another being that its our International Distribution Center in Charleston was designed from the ground up to provide not only deconsolidation services as a Bonded CFS Station, but also warehousing, drayage, and distribution services to its growing retail customer base. 

The biggest customer benefits of this news cited by Ramia included: dependability, transit time, visibility, and control.

“Our Asia-Memphis Express service has operated at near clock-work dependability for over 8 years, and this includes the highly disruptive period of labor instability on the West Coast during the first half of 2015,” he said.  “While the Charleston service is bit younger, we have structured both services in a similar fashion to give our customers the kind of confidence they require to effectively manage their supply chains. By establishing our own consolidations out of China, and bypassing the West Coast, we have injected a level of control and visibility into a market area that has rarely known any level of either.”

Along with its LCL announcement, Averitt also said that it has rolled out a Shanghai-Charleston economy service, which is a weekly direct LCL service to one of its International Distribution Centers, which is a Bonded Container Freight Station near the Port of Charleston that puts cargo directly into Averitt’s network of 140+ distribution centers throughout the U.S.

“This new solution can be very beneficial to customers in the Southeast and Middle Atlantic that are looking to save time and money,” said said Charlie McGee, Averitt;s vice president of international solutions, in a statement. “Unlike other shipping options from China to the region, this service travels through the Panama Canal and bypasses the Northeast port relay that is utilized by most LCL providers servicing the markets in the Southeast and Middle Atlantic. This allows us to get shipments straight to the customer in much less time with fewer handlings.”