Like many other businesses that outsource their trucking operations to achieve operational efficiencies, you want to minimize your truck transportation costs. Luckily, today's truck transport companies offer you many solutions to help you accomplish this goal.
Check out these three trucking transport services that can help you save money on transportation.
Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) Shipping
When you need to urgently transport freight that is not large enough to fill an entire truck, less-than-truckload shipping can be a godsend.
As the name implies, this shipping service allows you to share a truck with other customers (shippers or their agents) and only pay for the space that you reserve. This is usually a fraction of the total cost of reserving the entire truck.
The biggest drawback of LTL shipping is the lack of control over when your shipment will arrive at its destination. Because you share the truck space with other shippers, transit times for LTL shipping tend to be longer than if you reserved the entire truck space.
Backloading
Also referred to as backhauling, backloading is when a trucking transport company collects your shipment on its return trip after delivering an already paid-for shipment. It is a strategy many trucking companies use to optimize their fleet management efficiencies.
Rather than have their fleet return to their offices empty, they let you use them at discounted prices.
While backhauling can be a cost-efficient solution for your business's transportation needs, you may be forced to work with the service provider's pickup and delivery schedules. Plus, the available transport trucks might not always be compatible with the goods you're transporting because they could have left the base carrying different types of goods.
Full Truckload (FTL) Shipping
If you have multiple shipments, consolidating them into one larger shipment and using a full truckload (FTL) shipping service can help to reduce your overall transportation costs. FTL works well when you need to deliver homogeneous cargo to one or more locations.
Because it involves transporting large amounts of goods, you can haggle for greater price discounts with the service provider.
The main disadvantage of FTL shipping is that it may take longer to get your entire shipment ready for transportation. As a result, it may not work well for shipments that require urgent delivery.
The cost-effectiveness of the above-mentioned truck transportation solutions will depend on the specific needs of your business. Talk to an industry expert about your needs and situation to determine the best ways to save money on truck transport services.
Share7 March 2023
I come from a small town. It's so small that there is no public bus service—you can walk everywhere within city limits. People drove their cars if they wanted to leave town. At home, I rarely saw a taxi, and subways were something I only saw in movies. Moving to New York City was a shock in many ways, but learning how to get around using public transportation was one of the biggest hurdles that I faced. I didn't know how much to tip a taxi driver or how to find my way around on the bus. However, I did eventually learn. I know that there must be many people who are facing the same learning curve that I was facing a few years ago. I started this blog to help other small town natives like me learn how to get around in the big city.