A container is a standardized, reusable container designed for the transportation of goods by road, rail, sea and air and adapted for mechanized transfer from one vehicle to another. It can be made of various materials and have various shapes. In transport, the so-called universal containers are most widely used.
For ease of container identification, ISO 6346:1995 introduced “group codes” consisting of two Latin letters:
Technical characteristics of universal containers:
20 ft. container
40ft container
40ft. High-Cube Container
45ft. High-Cube Container
A bill of lading (French: le connaissement; English: bill of lading, B/L, BOL) is a document issued by a cargo carrier to the cargo owner. It certifies the ownership of the shipped goods.
The bill of lading performs several functions simultaneously:
Bills of lading differ in the method of transferring ownership of goods into the following types of these documents:
Incoterms (International Commerce Terms) are international rules in dictionary format that provide unambiguous interpretations of the most widely used trade terms in the field of foreign trade, primarily regarding franco — the place of transfer of responsibility from the seller to the buyer. International trade terms are standard conditions of international sales contracts that are defined in advance in an internationally recognized document.
The main principles regulated by Incoterms are:
Outside the scope of Incoterms are the rules for the transfer of ownership from the seller to the buyer, as well as the consequences of the parties’ failure to fulfill their obligations under the contract of sale of goods, including the grounds for releasing the parties from liability, which is regulated by the rules of applicable law or the Vienna Convention.
Each defined term is a three-letter abbreviation, the first letter indicating the point of transition of obligations from the seller to the buyer:
Incoterms 2010 defines 11 terms, 7 of which are applicable to any mode of main transport.
Incoterms 2010 also defines 4 terms applicable exclusively to maritime transport and territorial waters transport:
The content of Incoterms changes in various revisions, for example, in Incoterms 2010, in comparison with Incoterms 2000, the term DAP was introduced to replace the excluded DAF (delivered at frontier, delivery to the border), DES (delivered ex ship, delivery on board the vessel at the port of destination) and DDU (delivered, duty unpaid, delivery to the specified place without customs clearance), and instead of DEQ (delivered ex quey, delivery to the port), the more general term DAT was introduced.