Just about every business dealing in goods has shipping concerns. In fact, it’s important to keep your freight costs down and especially important with less than truckload shipments. If you want the lowest LTL quote for shipping the following tips can help.
Weigh Your Shipments
Your lift truck drivers or warehouse people should weigh (and not estimate) materials for LTL loads before staging them. It’s not hard to take a pallet of materials and place it on a floor scale with a lift truck. It takes a little longer, but most carriers weigh your shipments, so if you estimate the weight, your original LTL quote may be much less than what you end up paying.
Weighing materials can help you find problems with piece counts too. For example, if you know the weight of each product or case (and it’s too light or too heavy) you could have a problem with your packing system.
Take a Closer Look at Your Packaging
Are your materials packed to withstand shock? Once your goods leave your facility, you have no control over how they’re handled. Here is an example. A lift truck driver removes a pallet of your materials and runs into a warehouse post. If the cases are tightly packed with strong stretch wrap, you might not have any damages. However, if they’re loose, you could end up with some dissatisfied customers, and this cuts into your profits.
Make Your Materials Easier to Handle
Try to get as many items on one pallet as possible. For example, suppose a customer wants 84 cases of product. You have three full pallets of 24 cases and one partial of 12 cases. If you can find a way to stack 28 cases per pallet, you won’t have to pay for a partial load. You’ll get a lower LTL quote when you have fewer pallets to load.
