subject: What Is Ltl Shipping? [print this page] There aren't many industries where you get as many options as you do when you're trying to ship something with a courier. Any given Northwest Arkansas courier service might have a dozen different options that they can present you with every single time you make an order. As such, it pays to learn a little bit about the courier industry so that you can start to sort through the options and understand what you have available to you.
There is an option called LTL shipping that applies to a vast majority of people that are utilizing the courier industry. Those who are shipping packages that weigh less than 100lbs typically would not use LTL. Instead, they would use a traditional small parcel courier. People that are shipping loads of cargo that weight more than 10,000 lbs wouldn't use LTL either, instead they would hire a trucking company on an FTL basis. For everyone in between, LTL can be their best option.
LTL stands for less than truck load (its counterpart, FTL, means full truck load). It is used to help keep shipping costs down by combining the shipping requirements of several customers of the courier company into a single vehicle. Therefore, the price that you pay for shipping will be based partly on the percentage of the space in the load that your packages are consuming.
The best thing about LTL is that it helps to keep the prices down. Because the courier is shipping for several clients at once, many of the costs, such as the driver, are shared between them instead of having to be borne by a single party like they would if you were hiring the single truck. This often makes LTL the most cost effective shipping option for loads under 10,000lbs, but there are some drawbacks that you need to be aware of.
The primary drawback of LTL shipping is the timeline. It is always going to be slower to have packages delivered by LTL unless you get extremely lucky with your package being dropped off first. The courier will deliver the packages in the order that is most expedient for them. This could cause your package to be delivered in more time than it would take if you had the package shipped directly or with FTL. You will also be unable to make any special requests such as specifying the order for a multi stop delivery if you need your shipment broken up in any way.
by: Oliver Lempkin
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