Why a middleman can ship your pallet cheaper than you can
Small companies booking a truck directly are often offered 5 to 30 percent off a carrier's published rates. A freight broker buying space on the same trucks typically gets 50 to 80 percent off. That gap explains why so much business freight in the United States travels through intermediaries who never touch the goods.
The discounts matter most in less-than-truckload shipping, the category covering most freight and most business-to-business deliveries. These loads weigh between 50 and 7,000 kilograms, and the average single piece is about 600 kilograms, roughly one standard pallet. Several customers share each trailer, and goods are often shifted between vehicles along the way, so shippers must wrap and pack their own pallets for a mixed load. Carriers supply no packaging.
Above roughly 7,000 kilograms it becomes cheaper to hire a whole trailer, known as truckload freight, which is usually delivered on the very trailer that collected it. Weight limits cap how much fits. Under the Federal Bridge Gross Weight Formula, a loaded five-axle rig may not exceed 80,000 pounds, and since the long-haul tractor and trailer weigh about 15,000 kilograms themselves, only around 20,000 kilograms is left for cargo. Truckload carriers usually bill by the kilometre or mile, and thousands more small firms compete in this market than in shared loads.
Smaller categories follow their own rules. Express items such as envelopes rarely weigh more than a few kilograms and nearly always fly part of the way. Parcels seldom top 50 kilograms in total, and by ground they cover about 800 to 1,100 kilometres a day. Shippers can also dodge extra fees for liftgates or home pickups by dropping goods at a carrier's own terminal.
Air cargo began with mail in 1911 and now moves in standardised containers called unit load devices, the airborne cousin of the shipping container. The Antonov An-124 was built for easy conversion to freight. In the US, shippers must be registered as known in a federal system before their goods can travel on passenger planes.
Source: Cargo
