Build your freight tender specification step by step for road and sea: lanes, volumes, equipment, Incoterms and accessorial charges, with nothing left open. The page also explains which fields make bids comparable. A freight tender specification is the document that describes your transport requirement precisely enough for every carrier to price the same job. Its real purpose is not to collect quotes but to make quotes comparable: if lanes, volumes, equipment, service levels and commercial terms are not fixed, each bidder prices a slightly different scope and the comparison becomes meaningless. The sections below cover the areas that are commonly left open in road and sea tenders.
A specification should answer, in advance, every question a carrier would otherwise have to ask before quoting. Missing information produces one of two outcomes: the carrier prices the uncertainty as risk and comes in expensive, or it quotes cheaply on its own assumptions and raises accessorial charges once the business starts. The blocks below are the minimum set for most road and sea tenders — if you intentionally leave one out, say so in writing.
Nothing affects quote quality more than the resolution of your lane definition. "Turkey to Germany" is not a lane; a postcode-to-postcode pair is, because distance, the odds of finding a return load and therefore the rate all move at regional level. Give volumes from real history as well: inflated volumes buy a low rate in round one and turn into unavailable capacity when the season tightens.
Do not let bidders choose the quote format; free-form pricing cannot be placed side by side. Ask for one base rate per lane plus a separate schedule of accessorials — "all-in" carries no information unless what is included is itemised. You should also define the currency, the validity period and how fuel and currency movements will be reflected in the rate.
The risk sits in a different place in each mode, so the questions differ too. On road the risk is capacity and border time: committed truck allocation, use of subcontractors, dependence on transit permits or ferry space. On sea the risk is space and schedule reliability: bookings rolled to a later vessel, the number of transhipments, free time in port, and who submits the verified gross mass to the carrier, and by when.
The half of the specification that is not about price defines how performance is measured and what happens when something goes wrong. Avoid targets you cannot measure: instead of "on-time delivery", use definitions that can be evidenced from records, such as arrival at the loading point within the booked slot. Carrier liability is also capped: for international road carriage the CMR Convention as amended sets the cap at 8.33 SDR per kilogram of gross weight of the goods lost or damaged, and at sea the cap is set per package or per kilo by the regime that applies to the bill of lading. Where your cargo value exceeds the cap, only separate cargo insurance closes the gap — and under terms such as CIF and CIP arranging that cover is already the seller's contractual obligation. State in the specification which party carries it.
Run the tender on one version, one channel and one calendar. Publish the specification, open a question window, circulate the answers to every bidder at the same time as an addendum, and after the deadline compare all bids in one table on total cost rather than headline rate. Rather than awarding a lane to a single carrier, naming a primary and a backup keeps you off the spot market when capacity tightens.
The tool walks you through four decisions: transport mode (road or sea), the countries involved, your own description of the requirement, and the structure of the specification. The content set itself is fixed: scope and term, cargo profile, equipment, loading and unloading conditions, Incoterm, service levels, the accessorial schedule and the tender calendar. The guide on this page explains why each block is needed and which surcharge appears when one is left open. The finished specification opens inside your free Logistivo account.
Road and sea. Air and rail are out of scope for now. The distinction is not arbitrary: the questions change with the mode — on road you ask about committed truck allocation, subcontracting and transit-permit dependency; on sea you ask about guaranteed space, transhipment count, free time in port and the VGM obligation.
Yes, the tool is free to use and there is no charge. The completed specification document opens inside a free Logistivo account; if you continue without signing up, the last step shows a preview of the document only. The guide and the FAQ on this page can be read in full without any account.
For repeating lanes a periodic tender (commonly six-monthly or annual) works better; for one-off and project cargo a short request for quotation is enough. Even for a single shipment the cargo profile, loading conditions, Incoterm and accessorial list should be in writing — the real difference is that a one-off document carries no volume commitment and no long rate validity section.
Set it according to how volatile the lane is, and always state it. Short validity usually buys a lower rate but means constant renegotiation; long validity gives stability while the carrier prices the uncertainty into it. A practical middle ground is to fix the base rate for a longer term and update the volatile components, such as fuel and currency, through an index or formula announced up front.
Aim for at least three genuinely qualified and comparable bids per lane; adding unqualified bidders increases evaluation work and clouds the comparison — bid count on its own is no guarantee of a better rate. Where volume allows, name a primary and a backup carrier per lane and split the flow between them, so a single supplier's capacity squeeze does not leave you exposed.
Compare on total cost per lane for the period: convert every bid into one currency and one billing unit (per truck or per container, for example), multiply by expected shipment counts, then add estimated accessorials and waiting charges. To keep the conversion out of dispute, announce a single reference exchange rate source and date in the specification, and ask each bidder to state its own loading-metre or volumetric weight conversion rule, since these differ from carrier to carrier.
Transport licences, the carrier liability insurance certificate with the limit and scope visible, ADR and cold-chain certificates where relevant, a fleet and equipment list and a couple of references on comparable lanes cover most tenders. Do not push this to the contract stage: a carrier whose insurance limit or licence scope does not cover your cargo cannot be awarded the business anyway, however low the rate.
You can, provided they are measurable and work both ways. Tie any penalty to an indicator that can be evidenced from records, such as slot compliance, and exclude what the carrier does not control — waiting at the site, border queues, force majeure. A clause is only worth what you can enforce: reserving the right to shift volume between the primary and backup carrier on measured performance is far easier to apply than a financial penalty.
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