The last weeks of the year have yielded some interesting features that have appeared on the platform, as well as debugging and optimization of some existing products and elements. Thank you for helping us to move forward with you feedback, the letters we receive and the clarifying information that helps making the products flawless and to change the global approach to cargo transportation.
Please read the previous updates here
New Dashboard
We try to achieve the maximum level of usability for all users of the site, both for carriers (forwarders, brokers, transport companies, etc.), shippers (importers and exporters), and regular users who access the resource for information purposes. Of course, the main emphasis is placed on solutions that deal with the current business. This time, the main page of Virtual Office meets you with the main statistics of the actions that you make daily - your requests for transportation, your transport on the map, the bookings that you place or serve (if you are a carrier), messages, as well as financial statements. If you still have ideas how to reduce the number of clicks - feel free to share with us at [email protected], and the best offers will be transferred to our development team.
And if you would like to have this control panel right on your site - write to us at [email protected], and the personal manager will help you with integration.
Railway calculations in a radius of certain stations
Now it is possible to find and see all railway stations located within a radius of 500 km from the nearest one, where the tariffs of this or that forwarding company were added. This functionality is implemented to track delivery options nearby, as well as to allow importers and exporters to consolidate cargo together with other shippers in the same region.
This opportunity has been in demand for a long time by clients in the USA, Europe and the CIS, and also in India and China, and now it can be tested in practice. See how it looks, you can here.
Do you want such functionality on your site? Write us to [email protected].
New design of email and system notifications
You may have noticed that bookings and other notices come in a new, more concise layout, which allows you not to miss important information, and does not go beyond the boundaries of your mail. They are also easy to get on your mobile app, and all links are always at hand.
Do you want to receive bookings online in automatic mode to your email so that your managers only have to work with incoming flow of orders? Each form of the letter can be personalized individually for your company. Reach us at [email protected]!
Advanced Virtual Office functionality
We have prepared a new more complete presentation of the possibilities of the Virtual Office - the user's personal cabinet, developed in SeaRates. The full version of the presentation can be viewed here. In addition to the fact that each user can use all the functions of the system at searates.com (as well as airrates.com, roadrates.com and railrates.com) - it can be embedded on any type of site.
What will be equally important for transport and trading companies that want to offer customers the use of a personal cabinet on their website and organize their work - Virtual Office contains a system of user registration, so they will stored in your database and it will be easier for you to interact with them.
No less well than on a PC, the Virtual Office works in a mobile application. Ready to expand the comfort zone of your customers? Write to [email protected]!
Updated languages on the site
By the efforts of our development team, with the support of our partners, we are able to expand the geography of language coverage, and this time we are presenting Arabic, Hebrew, Italian and Greek languages. We hope that it will be easier for users to disclose all the possibilities of the site without discomfort and working with it in their native language, easily finding tariffs and any other information.
Noticed a mistake in the translation? Write to us at [email protected].
Cargo delivery through dry ports
The long-awaited function our team has been working on over the past four months. It is necessary to admit that for a long time in some regions, the platform issued not quite correct results on multimodal delivery. For example, in the USA and Canada, where the network of domestic container terminals (dry ports) is the most developed in the world, and their number exceeds 30, their capabilities were almost not disclosed.
Now, when you deliver the cargo, for example from Hamburg to Chicago, you will get this result:
From here you can see that the container will be delivered to the port of New York, after which it will be loaded on the railroad on the through tariff and in the express mode arrives in the dry port of Chicago, and then the local truck will complete the last mile delivery. Naturally, such combination gives appreciable difference at use of delivery under the scheme "sea-rail-road", than on the classical "sea-road" in decreasing side, especially on long distances.
A similar trend is now developing in Ukraine via Port Yuzhny (TIS terminal). About a year ago, the management of the terminal together with Maersk shipping line, which calls this container terminal, launched container trains to the 4 main domestic dry ports of Ukraine - Ternopil, Kiev, Kharkiv and Dnepr. Last mile delivery by regions from these terminals is much cheaper, than direct delivery from the sea port by trucks, and the time difference is almost twice less in comparison with usual railway-transportation. Thus, the development of this multimodal combination has a growing demand and will be even more requested in the future.
Want to try the benefits? Calculate the cost online, or leave a request, and the local agent will contact you within 20 minutes.
Comments for each rate on the platform
A useful addition, which was requested by many of our forwarding partners. The comments to the rates allow to add a standard note or explanation to each tariff very quickly. To add a comment, the carrier finds the corresponding button under the table of adding rates and creates templates with ready remarks for different cases of delivery. Then it remains to assign a specific template for a specific rate, and it will be displayed to the client when searching:
We invite you to join our open group for communication on international transport activities, as well as our Telegram channel for shipping innovations and industry updates - join us now!
