What is the LTL Shipping Method?
Trucks making freight deliveries are the lifeblood of our economy. Trucks supply towns, shops, and regions where boats and trains can’t reach. Trucks make individual deliveries to clients and keep a steady flow of products shipping between distribution centers. When your company needs to move freight from one city to the next, hiring an entire truck might clearly be too much space – and too much cost – for the amount you’re shipping.
When this happens, what you need is LTL trucking services. LTL is the small-business and special-event solution to traditional truck loads. It allows for more efficient use of gas, cargo space, and time for each load included in the LTL batch. What exactly is LTL shipping? It’s a handy way to share a truck’s journey time by renting the cargo space to more than one shipping client at a time. This is known as the Less-then-Load Shipping method.
What is LTL Shipping?
One LTL truck carries the smaller shipments of multiple clients going to the same city. This method is more affordable for the small-shipment clients and more efficient for trucking companies and drivers.
Less Than Load (LTL) Shipping
LTL shipping stands for Less-Than-Load. What this means is that your shipping cargo takes up less a whole truck-load. A single truck can take on several LTL shipping orders that are all traveling from the same origin to the same destination. Let’s say you are sending a partial-truckload of boxed shoes from Wichita to St Paul. At the same time, another company with a small shipment to St Paul can ship in the same truck, each sharing only part of the cost for sending a whole truck to St Paul.
With enough small shipments combined, an entire LTL cargo container can be filled. Each shipping client then pays only their cargo-share of the full price of sending the truck. LTL shipping is more efficient for drivers and trucking companies and more cost-effective for small businesses and small shipments.
Why LTL Trucking is an Efficient Solution
- Smaller Shipments Don’t Need a Whole Truck
- Share the Cost of a Truck Container with Other Small Shipments
- Secure Inventory Transport
- Sustainable Shipping Choice
LTL freight is an efficient answer to both clients and shipping companies. Shipping companies naturally want to run the fewest and most efficient drives on each route to best-serve our clients. Shipping clients, naturally, are looking to pay less for fast and reliable shipping. When you need less than a whole truck of cargo shipped, it’s always practical to pay less by splitting the cost with another shipping client (or clients) who needs to ship exactly as much space as is left in your truck and to the same city.
LTL trucking is also managed in a reliable and highly secure approach, with cargo packaged into palettes so your cargo is less likely to experience loss or damage. Even better. LTL shipping reduces the carbon footprint for every client and their cargo by sending one truck instead of several to make the trip, using less fuel, less wear-and-tear, and fewer driver hours.
When to Hire LTL Freight Services
- Shipping Less than 15,000 lbs of Freight
- A Full Trailer Would Be Over-Kill and Over-Cost
- To Reduce Private Shipping Costs
So when is the right time to hire LTL shipping for your company’s freight? It’s all about recognizing when your shipping load fits the perfect circumstances to save on shipping and choose a more efficient.
A good rule of thumb is if you’re shipping less than 15,000 lbs of freight, or a significantly smaller volume of products than the size of a truck’s container. Your company might regularly consider LTL shipping if you often if your company is looking to reduce shipping costs or carbon footprint.
Big Sky Trading for Your LTL Needs
Here at Big Sky Trading, we offer a variety of LTL trucking services based on the storage and transport needs of the client. By joining our LTL program, you can pair your less-than-load shipments with other clients to reduce the costs of shipping and increase the efficiency. Contact us today to consult on your LTL freight needs the shipping services that best suit you.
