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What is Zone Skipping?
Zone skipping is the process of consolidating larger volumes of shipments that are destined for the same geographic location for delivery. Generally, companies consolidated parcel or ltl freight shipments into a dedicated or shared truckload shipment. Moving all orders in 1 truckload shipment cross country or over several zones. Shipments are then unloaded and injected into the local fedex, UPS , or LTL shipping network for final delivery closest to your end clients.
Why should companies consider Zone Skipping?
Zone skipping can have multiple benefits if orchestrated and set up correctly. First and Foremost, Zone skipping can drastically cut the overall cost of shipping large volumes of separate fedex, ups, or smaller LTL-sized shipments independently. Zone skipping can also cut down transit and sorting times with 1 dedicated truckload shipment to the ultimate delivery zone/destination. It can also drastically reduce transit and sorting-related damages, that occur more often when packages cross-dock or sort through many transit hubs coast to coast.
Benefits of Zone Skipping
- Reduced overall shipping cost
- Faster Transit times
- Less Transit and Sort Related Damages
- Better more predictable and controllable tracking to your end clients
What types of companies and shipping volumes make sense for this type of consolidated logistical setup?
Some of our most recent and successful zone skipping clients have been beer and wine of the month clubs. Where the company is shipping to the same end clients, in the same zones, every month in volume. Especially since beer and wine are heavy and have all sorts of handling up charges and regulations because of the alcohol content. However, any company that is shipping things in large volume to the same zones or regions that could potentially be shipping most of the way in a consolidated truckload shipment would benefit from zone skipping.
Types of Industries that might benefit from Zone Skipping:
- Beer of the month clubs
- Wine of the month clubs
- Meal prep companies
- Clothing companies that curate an outfit a month for their clients
- Any company that is shipping close to a truckload’s worth of orders into the same zone month after month. We would assume this somewhere between 26 pallets and/or 500-1200 packages depending on the size and weight of the boxes.
- Industries that sell similar products and can band together to consolidate truckloads of shipments to skip zones and save money.
What are the actual mechanics of setting up zone skipping so it works well?
- Consult with your freight carrier to organize dedicated or shared truckload rates from your shipping location into the region or zone that your packages are delivering to.
- Contract with a warehouse to trans-load the packages or pallets and inject them into the local fedex, ups, or regional LTL carrier’s final delivery network.
- Shipments can be pre-labeled to ship from the trans-loading facility to your final client where and when It makes sense. Or the warehouse can book and label the packages as they are off-loaded into the next leg of shipping.
- Perhaps you can even leverage the better parcel and/or freight rates of the local warehouse trans-loading or your 3PL freight partner.
Give us a call if you would like to consider this type of supply chain style setup!
If your company is looking to explore the benefits of zone skipping we would be happy to help you scope out a win-win solution. Or at least we can help re-verify that you are moving your orders in the most economical and efficient manner currently. Easy Logistics Management and its partners have coastal and regional warehouse, fulfillment, and trans-loading facilities.
We also are part of one of the largest 3PL freight brokerage organizations so we can provide dedicated economical capacity and administration for your truckload zone skipping needs. If you need better final mile parcel or LTL freight shipping rates we can look at helping you achieve that also leveraging our collective $6 Billion or so in annual logistical spend. We also have API-enabled software platforms at most levels, to help you connect your systems to our for seamless scalability if and when you are ready for that.
Regardless, we very much enjoy scoping and crafting creative logistical solutions for our clients. Using the vast array of supply chain tools we have access to in our toolbox. We also figure if we craft the right solution for your company and set it up correctly, the emphasis will be on the overall cost-saving and efficiency, and automation of the program.
If you would like another good option for your zone skipping or other more complex supply chain and logistics needs, we would be happy to consult with you to see if we have a good option for you. We also have a shared truckload ltl style freight shipping option launching this fall. That should provide some of these benefits if a full zone skipping setup doesn’t make sense for you.
It is my company, we are looking to grow, and my team and I would be honored to look at better managing more of your supply chain and logistics needs this year!
Jeremy Curran