[akavi]

Freight forwarders merely subcontract to the underlying carriers, who, theoretically, are pretty commoditized. In this model, the differentiating costs for a freight forwarder is in the labor required to organize the various subcontracts, which is what Flexport attempts to drive down via tech.

That said, I can't really vouch for the soundness of this argument one way or another. It's been a long time since I worked there, and my primary interest when I did was more in understanding the industry at a conceptual level than in litigating the viability of the business model.

[kyllo]

Yes, a freight forwarder is sort of like a travel agent for freight--it's a middleperson role, in contrast to carriers, which are "asset-based" and operate vessels/planes/trucks.

Another significant cost factor for a freight forwarder is IT integrations with customers and carriers--many of which are very old-school and use EDI, SOAP, or even CSV-over-FTP to communicate shipment instructions and statuses.

I'm not sure to what extent Flexport implements these kinds of integrations with their partners, but there is definitely a significant hurdle to breaking even on investment in this kind of automation vs. just hiring clerks to process everything manually with e-mails and phone calls, especially in countries with lower labor costs.