Hey, this is Jeremy with Easy Logistics Management. Today, I’m here to talk to you a little bit about freight shipping quotes and what types of commodities lend themselves to freight shipping versus UPS or FedEx Ground shipping or other modes of transportation.
Heavy and Large Dimensionally
Generally speaking, these types of products weigh in excess of 100-150 pounds and up and have large dimensioning, making it hard to handle with one man and a dolly like UPS and FedEx. Generally, they have complex delivery requirements like a lift gate or heavy equipment to handle the products.
We generally see most of these types of products palletized so that we can easily use a forklift to lift them and transfer them without damaging the actual box and what’s inside. And they generally travel on larger 53-foot tractor trailer trucks or 48-foot tractor trailer trucks because the commodities are so large and they really won’t go on a courier style van like UPS and FedEx.
7 main factors that affect Freight Shipping Quotes
We generally see most of these types of products palletized so that we can easily use a forklift to lift them and transfer them without damaging the actual box and what’s inside. And they generally travel on larger 53-foot tractor trailer trucks or 48-foot tractor trailer trucks because the commodities are so large and they really won’t go on a courier style van like UPS and FedEx.
Weight of the product shipping
As far as how the actual freight shipping quotes are calculated, that’s generally based on these seven factors: weight, obviously. The more your commodity weighs or your package weighs, the more the quote is going to be.
Freight Class 50-500
Also, it’s based off of freight class that can be anywhere from 50-500. It’s generally based on density, but it’s a classification system that most of the North American freight industry uses to calculate rates.
Dimensions of Product Shipping
Dimensions of the product: If the product is very large dimensionally, most carriers over eight feet start adding additional fees that can add into your freight shipping quote cost.
Distance Travelled by shipment
Obviously, distance travelled: The farther your shipment is traveling, the more expensive that quote is going to be.
Hazardous Commodity?
Hazardous commodities: We ship a lot of electric motorcycles, things with big heavy duty lithium ion batteries. That can add to the overall freight shipping quote costs because sometimes they have to segregate those commodities from everything else on the trailer.
Accesorials and complexity of delivery requirement
Obviously, number 6, additional accessorials or delivery requirements: These are big heavy duty trucks like we’ve talked about before. So if you need a residential delivery or a lift gate or you need the product to be delivered inside or an appointment, all those things factor into your overall freight shipping quote.
Freight Shipping Insurance needs
Then obviously, most carriers offer a carrier liability, but if your product is very expensive, like electric motorcycles or — we’re actually handling a new company called Fliteboard that has a very expensive electric surf foil board — they’re going to need additional insurance that’s going to add into the overall freight shipping quote cost.
If you’re grappling with this, we do this every day. We’d be happy to talk you through a lot of this and try and offer you suggestions on how to get the best possible freight shipping quotes or just understanding the cut offs for parcel versus freight shipping.
Obviously, a lot of people when they’re asking about freight shipping quotes, one of the major concerns and things that people are looking for is really tips to economize your freight shipping costs because it can go up pretty quickly based off of those seven factors that we have just covered.
We’ve done other videos on this that go more in depth and you can check those out later. But generally speaking, these would be the six tips for economizing your freight shipping costs or freight shipping quotes.
6 main ways to get the best Freight Shipping Quotes
Work with a Freight Broker
Number 1, working with a freight brokerage that has a lot of buying power and an easy-to-use freight management system that shops hundreds of carriers at their drastically reduced rates, all under one menu, like Travelocity for airline flights or things like that, just so you get a lot of options, because not all carriers can ship your commodity on their freight trucks as economically in each lane. So leveraging a lot of different carriers under one system can help you achieve better rates.
Ship more Units Per Shipment:
Obviously, shipping more units at a time per shipment. The more you ship at a time, the less it’s going to cost you per unit. If you can incentivize your dealers or whatever to buy in bulk, that will drastically reduce the cost per unit shipped.
Reduce the size and weight of your packaging:
Number 3, reducing the size and weight of your packaging, because a lot of this goes into density and the density of the actual packages that are shipping. So if they’re smaller and lighter, it’s going to reduce your overall shipping costs per unit shipped.
Negotiate a Customer Specific Freight Tariff:
Number 4, you can negotiate a customer-specific tariff with specific carriers. Certain carriers, if you’re just shipping from point A to point B all the time, there are certain carriers that probably specialize and are optimized for that type of shipment.
If you’re shipping all over the place, sometimes that’s hard to do. Some bigger carriers can accommodate that, but you can generally negotiate a customer-specific tariff. The magic number tends to be around $15,000 a month in freight spend for carriers to come to the table and things like that, but we can also plug these tariffs into a freight management system so you can shop them alongside a broker’s pricing with their carriers.
Reduce the Complexity of your shipping Requirement:
Number 5, reduce the complexity of the shipping requirement. Easier, you can make it the less accessorials, less lift gates, less inside delivery, less appointments necessary. That may be counter to what’s going on in the industry with residential delivery and e-commerce. But if you can reduce complexity, your freight shipping costs are going to go down.
Automate as much of the freight shipping process as possible:
Number 6, automate as much as possible. There’s so much software and so many automations now using API where you can automate the quoting, booking, tracking. Plug it into your website so it automatically quotes the freight shipping costs and lets your client pay for the product and the shipping. You can do this with ERP business software like NetSuite and SAP. Just the more you can automate, the less time, energy, and headcount you’re going to need to run this whole operation.
In Conclusion
Those would be probably my six top tips without going too much into depth. Again, this is something that we grapple with every day, so if you’d like to talk with us and have us drill into what you’re doing in your process and make suggestions, we’d be happy to do that. That’s what we do every day. It’s my company. We’re looking to grow and we’d be honored to work with you more so give us a call.