Your Guide to LTL Shipping, Part 2: How to Prepare Your Goods for LTL Shipping

As your company has grown, so have your shipping needs. You’re ready for the next step up when it comes to transporting your goods. No more dropping items off at the UPS store—this is the real deal. However, if you’re new to the world of LTL shipping, preparing your goods for transport may seem a bit overwhelming at first. No need to worry, though. As your LTL trucking service in Minnesota, we’re here to help. To get started, here are a few things you should know about preparing your goods for LTL shipping.

Packaging

LTL shipping is a cost-effective solution for transporting your goods because you are not paying for a whole semi trailer, at least not by yourself. Because LTL loads are smaller, we reduce costs for our clients by having several LTL shipments per truck. The more shipments per truck, the lower the cost for us, and those savings are passed on to you. To make the most room, we suggest that customers load their goods onto pallets prior to pickup. Heavier items should be on the bottom and lighter items on top. This not only saves on space, but helps ensure the safety of your goods, too.

Record your dimensions

Properly recording the dimensions of your shipment is essential in the planning of the load. Again, our ability to load several shipments per truck helps us offer our customers reduced shipping costs. To help plan our loads, it’s important that we know the exact dimensions of the goods you want to ship. Measure your goods by length, width and height, and be sure to round up to the next inch to leave a margin for error.

Preparing documentation

To ensure that your goods are transported properly and to the right parties, it’s important that the driver have the proper documentation for your shipment. Documentation should include the name of the shipper, the recipient, date of the shipment, number of units being shipped, a description of the goods, dimensions and the value of the goods being shipped. Having this information helps us to ensure that your goods are shipped to the appropriate parties efficiently and safely.

Loading

Because we have multiple shipments per truck, we strive to have our employees load shipments as quickly as possible. Efficient loading and unloading of shipments helps to ensure quick delivery times and, again, lower shipping costs. To help with the efficiency of loading, be sure that all the prior steps listed above are carried out before the arrival of our drivers. The sooner we can get your shipment loaded onto the truck, the sooner we can get it into the hands of your customers.

As your local expert in LTL trucking service in Minnesota, we’re here to help make the shipping process as simple, efficient and cost-effective for you as possible. If you’re new to LTL shipping, we’re here to help you every step of the way. To learn more about the process, please contact the team at K-Way Express, Inc. today.