Door-to-door freight
Door-To-Door Freight — One Price, One Contact, Supplier to Your Loading Dock
Most freight problems happen in the gaps between suppliers. Door-to-door removes the gaps: we own every leg from your supplier’s factory to your dock, and there is nobody to hand the problem to.
In short
Door-to-door freight is a single price and a single point of contact covering collection at origin, international transport, customs clearance and final delivery in Australia. It is international logistics management expressed as one line on a quote — with no gaps between parties for a shipment to fall through.
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End to end
What door-to-door actually covers
A port-to-port rate looks cheap because it excludes most of the journey. Door-to-door is priced on the whole thing, which means the number you approve is the number you can put in a landed cost calculation without adding a mental buffer.
- Collection from your supplier’s premises, including inland cartage from factories away from the port.
- Origin handling, consolidation and export clearance.
- Sea or air freight on the main leg.
- Australian terminal and port charges, including the ones that usually appear as a surprise line on cheap quotes.
- Customs clearance, duty and GST assessment, and biosecurity management.
- Container unpack or airport collection.
- Final delivery to your address, with tail-lift, forklift, hand-unload or timed-delivery requirements built in.
- One invoice and one point of contact for the whole journey.
If you would prefer to keep part of the chain in-house, we can quote that too — but we will be explicit about which charges you will still receive from someone else, so you are comparing like with like.
Compare
Door-to-door versus port-to-port
| Port to port | Door to door | |
|---|---|---|
| What is quoted | The ocean or air leg only | The entire journey, supplier to your dock |
| Origin cartage | You or your supplier arranges | Included |
| Destination charges | Invoiced separately, often after arrival | Included and visible up front |
| Customs and biosecurity | Your problem to organise | Included and lodged pre-arrival |
| Local delivery | Separate carrier, separate invoice | Included, with access requirements planned |
| Who you call when something goes wrong | Whichever of the four parties is responsible | Us |
| Number of invoices | Typically three to five | One |
| Suitability | Experienced importers with their own broker and carrier | Anyone who wants a landed cost they can rely on |
Read freight costs explained for a full breakdown of the charges that sit between the two.
Delivery detail
The delivery questions we ask before we quote
Final delivery is where otherwise smooth shipments fail. A truck that cannot access your site, or a pallet that nobody can unload, costs a re-delivery fee and a day. These are the questions we ask up front.
- Is there a loading dock, and what height is it?
- Do you have a forklift and someone licensed to operate it, or do we need a tail-lift vehicle?
- Can a semi-trailer or B-double physically reach the site, or is a smaller rigid required?
- Are there delivery windows, booking systems or site inductions to satisfy?
- Does the cargo need to be delivered palletised, or unpacked loose?
- Is anyone on site to sign for and check the delivery?
- For residential or shopping-centre deliveries, are there access restrictions or after-hours requirements?
FAQ
Door-to-door freight questions
Is door-to-door the same as DDP?
Not quite. DDP is an Incoterm describing who bears cost and risk in a sale contract, including duty and tax. Door-to-door describes the scope of the freight service. You can buy a door-to-door service on FOB terms — and for most Australian importers that combination is the best of both. See Incoterms explained.
Does door-to-door include duty and GST?
Duty and GST are shown as an itemised estimate in the quote and invoiced at the actual amount, because they depend on final invoice values and classification. Everything else is fixed.
Is door-to-door more expensive?
The quoted number is higher because it covers more. The total you pay is usually lower, because the charges that get added later to a port-to-port rate are negotiated up front rather than presented as a fait accompli.
Can you deliver to regional and remote Australia?
Yes, including mine sites, farms and remote construction projects. Regional delivery needs more lead time and clear access information, both of which we plan for.
Can you deliver to a residential address?
Yes, though residential deliveries need a tail-lift vehicle and realistic expectations about what a driver can move alone. Tell us at quote stage and we will specify the right vehicle.
Do you offer door-to-door on exports as well?
Yes. Through our agent network we can deliver to your buyer’s premises overseas. See exporting from Australia.
Scope, precisely
What door to door includes — and the four things it usually does not
Door to door is a pricing structure, not a promise. Two quotations using the same three words can differ by thousands of dollars because they draw the line in different places. Here is where we draw it, in writing, before you book.
What is inside our door-to-door price
- Collection from your supplier or your warehouse, including waiting time within an agreed window
- Origin export customs formalities and documentation
- Ocean or air carriage, including all carrier surcharges quoted at the time of booking
- Destination terminal charges, wharfage and the infrastructure surcharge
- Import declaration, tariff classification, duty and GST calculation and lodgement
- Biosecurity lodgement and the standard container or cargo inspection
- Delivery to your nominated address with the equipment your site actually needs
What sits outside it, on any provider
- Duty and GST themselves — we calculate and lodge, but the tax is yours
- Biosecurity treatment, fumigation or cleaning where an inspection finds a risk
- Demurrage, detention or storage caused by delays outside our control, such as a customs hold on your documentation
- Site-specific handling that was not disclosed: forklift hire, crane, restricted access or after-hours delivery
Why we ask about your delivery site before quoting
A truck that cannot get in, or cannot be unloaded within the allowed time, converts a clean quotation into a waiting-time invoice and a second delivery attempt. Five minutes of questions at quoting stage removes the most common source of unexpected charges in Australian import freight.
DDP and delivered pricing for your own customers
Where you sell on delivered terms, we can quote your buyer’s door as well as your own, in Australia or overseas. That requires the same discipline in reverse: understanding destination customs practice and delivery access. See Incoterms explained for how the responsibility actually splits.
How it is managed
One file, one coordinator, one accountable party
The reason door to door fails is almost never the ocean leg. It fails at the handovers — between the origin agent, the carrier, the customs broker and the transport operator. Removing those handovers is the entire value of the service.
A named coordinator, not a queue
Every door-to-door file has one person who owns it from collection to delivery. You do not explain your shipment again to a different operator each time you call, and you do not chase three companies to find out where a container is.
Milestone reporting instead of tracking numbers
We report against the milestones that let you make decisions: cargo received at origin, container loaded, vessel departed, arrival confirmed, entry lodged, cleared, transport booked, delivered. See shipment tracking for what you get and when.
Exception management
When something moves, you hear it from us before you notice it yourself, with the options and the cost of each. A rolled sailing, a biosecurity hold or a congested terminal is normal in this industry. Finding out about it a week late is not.
Where door to door fits in a wider program
For businesses shipping regularly, door to door is one component of a managed program covering supplier compliance, routing strategy, landed-cost control and inventory timing. That is described in full on our international logistics management and supply chain solutions pages.
Related services: FCL shipping, LCL shipping, customs clearance coordination and commercial import logistics.
Read next
More on end-to-end freight
Related guides and services covering the questions importers and exporters usually ask next.
- Commercial imports — the full inbound program
- Container shipping — FCL and LCL compared
- Freight costs explained — every charge in a landed cost and what moves it
- Warehousing — if you would rather take pallets than a container
Get a door-to-door price
Give us the supplier address and your delivery address. We will quote the entire journey, itemised, with nothing waiting to appear later.