California by itself is one of the largest economies in the world. The total economic output of San Diego County alone is close to the same output of the entire country of the Netherlands.

So when it comes to opportunity for your products to be either manufactured and exported or imported and sold, there are a lot of options available to you.

At OTSFF® / OTS®, we are involved with freight forwarding and logistics at every port in California. We are therefore able to help you to import or export efficiently wherever your cargo is entering the country or wherever it will ship from on its way overseas. Because our operations are global, we can seamlessly provide you with shipping services that offer the benefit of knowing that our people are working with your shipment from the time it leaves to the time it arrives.

Here are some tips for shipping products from and to California:

If you are importing:

Remember that labeling in California is very important and normally much stricter than it is in other states, especially for food products. If you do some research, you will have a much better experience bringing your products to California. Contacting us to give you a quotation from your origin overseas helps you by allowing us to provide you with California specific information that you might need. One good example is with regard to perishable items- California has stricter regulations than most states when it comes to the import of fruits and plant matter due to the potential negative impact that pests can have. Therefore, if you are importing food or plant material that is susceptible to any of the listed problem areas, you will need to provide a certificate issued by the country of origin’s Agricultural Department that verifies that your shipment has been treated for each type of pest that can affect it in order for your shipment to be able to clear customs.

For Exporting:

When it comes to choosing a port to bring your product into, we can provide you with details on which port would be appropriate and optimum for your needs. For ocean freight, this is pretty straight-forward, Oakland for Central or Northern California points of origin and Los Angeles or Long Beach for Southern California clients. Air travel can get a little bit trickier because if, for example, you are in the Northern part of San Diego County, shipping from San Diego International airport would be your closest option yet LAX or Los Angeles International will often times cost less because there are a lot more flights leaving from there. In the Bay Area, you also have choices between Oakland International Airport and San Francisco International airport. In some cases, however, it can even be more cost-effective to ship via San Jose Airport to another airport that has a direct flight to your destination. OTSFF® / OTS® excels at creating the best scenario for you.

For comprehensive logistics solutions that fit your needs from California to anywhere or, anywhere to California.