Shipping small orders can be complex. Sometimes your customers don’t have enough volume to justify taking a full truckload or want products shipped to them frequently in small quantities. Less than Truckload shipping is a great solution to meet this need. When it comes to managing logistics for smaller shipments, WHY Logistics offers an efficient and economical solution. Our LTL Freight Quotes are based on identifying the right carrier for your shipments, so they deliver on time, without surprises.
Understanding LTL Shipments & How to get an LTL Freight Quote
LTL freight shipping refers to the transportation of a smaller shipment of products that do not require an entire truck’s capacity. This method allows multiple shippers to share space on a single truck, making it a cost-effective solution for businesses to get their products to where they need to go. LTL shipping is ideal for goods weighing between 150 and 15,000 pounds.
- Know Your Freight: To obtain an LTL Freight Quote, you’ll need to know the product weight, dimensions of the shipment and what the commodity is. Carrier have to balance the total space a trailer can accommodate and the total weight a trailer can hold legally. To help carriers plan effectively they look at something called “density” which is the measure of pounds per cubic foot.
- Lead Time and Transit Time: While LTL shipping provides a more economical cost for shipping smaller orders, it comes with a trade-off with how long it might take to deliver the product. If you have enough lead time to get the product delivered, shipping via LTL is a great option. If you were to move products 500 miles on a dedicated truck, that could be delivered the next day. With LTL, expect that to take 2 to 3 days. The reason is the freight needs to be brought back to the carrier’s local terminal once it’s picked up and then loaded onto a trailer that needs to be transported to the delivery terminal. Once it reaches the delivery terminal, the shipment delivery needs to be planned out and appointments might need to be set.
- Know your Shippers & Receivers: Shippers and receivers can have specific requirements that might not work for all carriers. Many times, carriers will access additional charges based on shipper or receiver requirements which are referred to as accessorial charges. As you’re looking at an LTL Freight Quote, it’s important to consider how the carrier who the quote is based on works with your shippers and receivers. Certain carriers may not pickup or deliver to specific locations and some carriers are preferred carriers for specific delivery locations based on arrangements that carrier has with the receiver or a high volume of freight the carrier delivers to that location. Selecting the proper carrier is essential to ensuring your product gets delivered on time and that the LTL Freight Quote you received isn’t incurring additional charges.
LTL Freight Quote Industry Insights
No two LTL carriers operate the same or want the same type of freight. Understanding what carriers handle what types of shipment the best can challenge even the most seasoned logistics professionals. To successfully obtain an LTL freight quote, knowing the complexities that come with LTL is a crucial step for businesses looking to optimize their LTL shipping strategies.
- Freight Class: Just knowing weight and dimensions isn’t enough for some carriers. Freight class can assign based on the pounds per cubic foot or density of a shipment. Depending on what the products are, there are different break points in freight class and in order to organize this the industry looks at something called the NMFC code (National Motor Freight Classification code) that helps carriers classify products not only by density, but also by the value of the products.
- Accessorial Charges: Most LTL Freight Quotes will only cover shipping from one location to another and are based on the carrier picking up from a location with loading docks. If your receiving location requires appointments, there’s a charge for that. If your shipping location doesn’t have a loading dock, there’s a charge for that. If your shipment size or weight is different than what that quote was based on, there’s a charge for that. If your receiving location requires something special, you guessed it, there’s a charge for that.
- Managing LTL Complexity: Not all LTL service offerings are created equal. In LTL shipping, transit times are not always guaranteed, however each carrier offers different service types with different levels of assurances/guarantees if you’re willing to pay for it. Carrier will offer something called dynamic pricing where if a carrier is looking for freight picking up or shipping to a certain area, they will extend special pricing only when they are looking for freight on those lanes. Under this dynamic pricing, you can have two shipments that are exactly the same which ship a month a part and pay two different rates. LTL carriers might also want a different profile of freight, where some might want smaller, heavier shipments where others might want large shipments that weigh less. Many times carriers will put restrictions into place where they won’t honor freight quotes that exceed a certain number of pallets or certain cubic footprint if the freight class is too high. In situations like this they might direct you to obtain a volume quote or spot quote.
Benefits of LTL Freight Quotes with WHY Logistics:
Onboarding transportation providers shouldn’t be hard if you’re selecting the right partners. Our approach to transportation is to do the little things right that everyone in this industry complains about. Communicate proactively, don’t change my contact and save me time.
- Our People: Our team has experience on all sides of logistics; in warehousing, trucking, brokerage and even in your shoes as a shipper. By focusing on communication and transparency, we build long lasting relationships.
- Understanding your WHY: In logistics, the simpler and the clearer the better. We do this through dedicated assigned contacts with industry experience who work to learn what you expect from a transportation provider. We think going through this once is a lot simpler than having you train a new hire every college graduation season.
- 24/7 Monitoring & Support: Continuous tracking and dedicated support teams to ensure your shipment arrives on time and in perfect condition. We offer portal access to our TMS, proactive shipment status notification and customized reporting.
WHY Choose Our LTL Freight Quote Solutions
We know that understanding all the moving parts in the world of LTL can be a big undertaking. Obtaining an accurate LTL Freight quote can be challenging, but you don’t have to go this alone. By partnering with WHY Logistics, you can take advantage of our experience in knowing how to navigate the complexities of LTL shipping. Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, we work to understand all the factors that influence LTL Freight Quotes. At WHY Logistics, when we provide an LTL Freight Quote, you can trust that we’re taking the time to identify the right carrier for your shipment and are working to minimize the surprise accessorial charges that are the biggest headache for most LTL shippers.