LTL Freight..
When your business begins to grow, you can no longer use the conventional methods of delivering your goods to your customers. If, let's say, in the past, you have always used the postal courier to send goods to your customers on a fortnightly basis, you are not able to use this same method anymore, especially when you have to send goods to your customers twice a week now. Not only will it cost more, it is also time consuming as you keep running to and fro the post office to manage your deliveries. So, what do you do then? There is one great option that you can consider - LTL freight carriers.
Never heard of LTL freights? Well, LTL is short for less-than-truckload - meaning that the cargo that is being shipped is between 100lbs and 20,000lbs, hence, it does not require the space of an entire truck by itself. This means, if you have various shipments between 100lbs and 20,000lbs going out to your customers, LTL freight is the way to go. With LTL freight, you only pay for the space that you use, as LTL shipments are shipments that are consolidated into a trailer or a truck that are going to the same destinations. Only in very rare occasions you will find a shipment or two of an LTL freight carrier going to different locations - and most of the time, the locations are not really too far apart.
What happens is that the less than truckload freight carriers would arrange to collect shipments from different shippers and they will then consolidate all the shipments onto their own enclosed trailers or trucks. Usually, the drivers would start their day by making delivery of shipments first and then begin to pick up shipments or freights from respective shippers. Therefore, you would notice that the deliveries of shipments are usually performed in the mornings, while pickups are done in the afternoons.
The transit times for LTL freights are usually longer compared to FTL freights because of the dependence of the makeup of the network of Terminals and Breakbulks that are operated by any given carrier and that said carrier's beyond. You may think that this is a setback of using LTL freight carriers, but if your shipment is being picked up and delivered by the same freight terminal, your shipment would most likely be delivered to your customer's place on the next business day after pickup. Hence, it is important to check with your LTL freight carrier on the transit time required for the delivery of your shipment.
If you compare the cost of using an LTL carrier to having to hire an entire truck just for one exclusive shipment that would not utilize the full space of the truck, you will surely see that using LTL freight is a whole lot more cost saving. This is the reason why many business operators would prefer to use an LTL carrier to transport their shipment, as they only need to pay a fraction of the cost of hiring an entire truck. One site that may offer a solution to your logistics needs is http://www.saveonfreight.com/truckload.php
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dean_McNeely
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