In addition to the official bills of lading mentioned in previous two parts, there are some other delivery documents similar as bill of loading, but it’s does not have the proof of property. For example, FCR (Forwarders Certificate of Receipt), FTBL (Forwarders Through Bills of Lading). Strictly speaking, these documents only belong to the “carrier receipt”, means the freight forwarder defined has received the goods from the consignor. The operation is same as the bill of lading, but substantially is different. The reason for occurred such receipt documents because the purchasers have a large quantity of purchases in the export place, or when there are agents to purchase the goods, or when the branches directly place orders for purchase, the goods are transported in a centralized manner, which saves transportation time and saves Freight, so the agent usually instructs the exporter, or the supplier delivers the goods to the carrier. The carrier pre-packs certain containers with the shipping company, and then the carrier is responsible for loading the containers until the goods arrive at the port of discharge or At the destination, the carrier is responsible for the lead or distribution to the consignee in different areas, which will save a lot of time and expense. In this way, it is the carrier, not the shipper, that signs the shipping contract with the shipping company. Therefore, after the consignor delivers the goods to the carrier, the documents obtained are the carrier receipt and not the shipping bill of lading. At present, many international supermarket buyers such as WALL-MART, K-MARK, etc., use this method.
Therefore, there are several features of FCR/FTBL as below:
1. Normally FCR/FTBL only applied to FOB terms.
2. FCR/FTBL is just a receipt, not as a proof of privilege such as a bill of lading.
3. FCR/FTBL, like the Cargo Receipt, has no strict qualification limits.
4. Importers can pick up the goods without the original FCR/FTBL.
5. The carrier will take the risk if the shipper can’t get the goods payment.
In this way, the risk of FCR/FTBL is obvious. However, because importers in this way are mostly well-known international supermarket buyers with good reputation, exporters and banks generally accept this clause. In addition, since the buyer selected by the buyer is a strong and well-retained ship generation, there is generally no problem.
Under the FCR/FTBL conditions, it is more cost-effective for manufacturers to do FOB than to make CNF prices, since the large buyer against the big volume can get a very lower rate and almost no affected by seasonal fluctuations.
However, usually the exporter will bear the risk in practice. Because the orders of supermarket buyers generally have the characteristics of large quantity and long period of time, an order is usually to be shipped many times, sometimes its need takes more than one year to be finished the whole shipment. In this process, once there is any problem (many times it is not obvious who is right or wrong, but disagreement), the buyer will take the initiative and use the characteristics of FCR/FTBL to pick up the goods first, without affecting themselves. Sales, at the same time find a reason (It’s too easy to pick holes) temporarily to hold the goods payment, the exporters will face to the capital turnover pressure, forced to submit. Unless the exporters and buyers rip their faces and face the lawsuit, this situation is obviously not possible. The cost of the labor is not to be paid, and the remaining goods are still not paid? In particular, some products have strong seasonality and a large amount of capital. The goods produced for a certain buyer often lose a lot of money. Taking into account various factors, most exporting manufacturers will choose to bear a little bit of loss.
Therefore, it is very cautious for FCR/FTBL terms. Especially for those that are prone to problems, such as tight raw materials, high price fluctuations, too late orders, etc., would rather bear the risk of freight fluctuations, but also insist on doing CNF/CIF
Another factor in the bill of lading is the date. In foreign trade contracts and letters of credit, the delivery date is specified, generally expressed as "Lasted Shipment Dated", which is measured by the "Onboard Dated" on the bill of lading.
