Working With LTL Shippers To Get Your Freight Where It Needs To Be
When you have freight that needs to get to a destination and have don't have enough to fill an entire trailer, you need to find another option. Less the load (LTL) freight shipping may be the way to go, and working with LTL freight services can be extremely cost-effective for your business.
Less Than Load Freight
The idea behind LTL freight shipping is simple and effective because, instead of moving partial trailer loads, companies can share a trailer going to the same general part of the country to ship freight. The cost is lower because the shipping cost is divided between the companies sending the cargo, but it needs to be well-coordinated to work effectively.
Working with LTL freight services means having someone coordinate the entire shipment for your company. The load coordinator will take the information for your load and find another partial load that needs to go to the same area in the same time frame as your freight and then coordinate a truck and trailer to pick up both loads and move them together.
In some cases, the shipping deadlines may be very close, and the delivery order of the freight may need to be taken into consideration by the load coordinator so that the cargo is loaded in the right order. The LTL freight service will handle all the details to put the load together and get it where it needs to be, eliminating the headaches and stress of dealing with the shipping yourself.
Cross Docking Freight
If your freight needs to get to a specific destination, but there is no truck leaving your area going there, the LTL freight services coordinator may choose to use a cross-docking system to get your freight where it needs to be. The freight will be loaded on a truck and transported to a freight warehouse along the way.
Once the load arrives at the warehouse, the freight is unloaded and moved across the warehouse to the loading dock, to a waiting truck going to the right destination. Your freight is loaded onto this truck for the remaining leg of the delivery. Cross-docking takes a considerable amount of coordinating to ensure that everything works the way it is supposed to, but a good LTL freight services coordinator can make it happen and look effortless when they do.
Services like this can make the cost of LTL freight services worth the price and make it possible for smaller companies to get their freight to the customer on time and in good condition.