APA Olsen Pty Ltd was formed in August 1994 as a partnership between Paul Adams and Nick Olsen, who were working for multinational forwarders at the time. Both Paul and Nick were disenchanted with the multinational's desire to achieve maximum turnover, even at the cost of service to the customer. With this common philosophy as the basis, APA Olsen came into being on the 1st August 1994. Paul was instrumental in the early years of APA Olsen and in late 1996 left to concentrate on other business interests. Nick Olsen has owned and developed the business since that time.

As the business grew and developed so did the needs of our Customers. Our business was based on a desire to provide a quality service at competitive rates and we found that our Customer's freight forwarders were not providing that service. We undertook then to develop a quality freight forwarding service that was competitive in the market place. We selected our overseas agents carefully, and established relationships with companies that shared our business philosophy. Our range of services has expanded from simply that of Customs Brokerage, to a full service freight forwarding and logistics service.

We are located in Mcgregors Drive in Keilor Park and our premises are approximately 15,000 square feet, comprising of office and warehouse areas. We have 7 full time staff including 2 Quarantine Accredited Licenced Customs Brokers and we are forecasting another 2 by the end of 2010.  We invest heavily in our staff with regular training and provide them with latest technology. 

Our latest initiative is a product called Pangaea, which is an Internet based order tracking and management system. Pangaea is unique in that it allows real time communication and updates, and allows input by all parties in the order chain, from the manufacturer through to the importer, wherever they may be. Importantly, it allows real time shipment information to be input by our overseas agents and will generate status emails at all of the important milestones. Pangaea can also track your orders down to line level.

We don't manufacture a product or sell something tangible. We sell a service, and reliable, timely, information is the key to our business. We began because we couldn't provide the service I wanted to, and now I can and do.

Nick Olsen