What is Shipper?
The shipper is the party that contracts with a carrier for the carriage of goods or tenders the goods for carriage, and is named as shipper on the bill of lading, sea waybill or air waybill. In US ocean law, 46 U.S.C. 40102 defines a shipper as a cargo owner, the person for whose account the ocean transportation is provided, the person to whom delivery is to be made, a shippers' association, or an NVOCC that accepts responsibility for payment of all tariff or service contract charges. That last element means an NVOCC is a shipper toward the ocean carrier while acting as a carrier toward its own customers. Air law conventions use the term consignor for the same role. The shipper on the transport document is not necessarily the seller or the exporter of record, which matters for customs and export control filings.
Why it matters for forwarders
Most carriage regimes put core duties on the shipper: describing the goods accurately, packing and marking them properly, declaring dangerous goods, and paying freight unless agreed otherwise. Under SOLAS the shipper must provide the verified gross mass of a packed container in a shipping document signed by a person it has authorised. Under Hague-Visby the shipper is deemed to guarantee the accuracy of the marks, number, quantity and weight it furnishes and must indemnify the carrier for losses caused by inaccuracies. On a house bill the forwarder's customer is the shipper, while on the master bill the forwarder or its origin agent normally appears as shipper, and confusing the two causes errors in manifest data and release instructions. Confirm the correct shipper before documents are issued, because changing it afterwards usually requires surrender and reissue of the originals.