Truckload shipping has a multitude of shipping quote options. In fact, when you first look at a quote chart from any one shipper, you might be a little overwhelmed. Compound that with various abbreviations and changes in quotes, and you may be at a loss for deciding who is going to be your main shipping company. The following truckload shipping definitions, as well as the related quotes, will help clarify things for you.
FTL or Full Truckload
This is just another way of saying that everything you are shipping is going to take up the full trailer on the back of a truck. The trailer is packed to the gills with your company's stuff, and only your company's stuff. There are more than fifteen thousand pounds of goods packed into the trailer and being shipped from your company's warehouse to the required destination. Shipping industry quotes on FTL shipments are standard shipping rates. There is nothing special or out of the ordinary if you account for the slight fluctuation in price from one shipper to the next. (Additionally, that slight fluctuation between one shipping company and the next may be an upward shift or a downward shift in cost.)
LTL or Less Than a Truckload
This means that you only have a half truck, a quarter truck, two-thirds of a truck, or three-quarters of a truck of goods to ship. There is nothing else you can squeeze onto the truck that needs to be shipped within the same time frame. The quote you receive in this case relates to just how much of the truck your partial load will fill. If a typical full truck costs $200, and you only have half a truckload, then you are usually charged half the full truckload price. The result is that you share the cost of the shipping for your goods with another company that will squeeze their shipment on the same truck and make it fit with the size of your shipment. It is not always practical, but it is more affordable and more sensible than paying full price to ship a truck of goods that is only a partial load.
ALT Shipping
ALT means alternative. In this example, you may have something that requires a bigger truck, or you may want to ship it across the country via another form of shipping besides a truck. Some shipping companies will do that, but they charge vastly different prices.
To learn more about shipping, contact a company in your area like Move Freight.
Share6 November 2019
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