Small retailers often face difficulties when trying to rearrange their shipments. For small companies, it’s not profitable to have their own logistics units. It’s better to cooperate with freight forwarders. They offer a wide assortment of available options and services.
To avoid financial losses and damages to your items, you should hire only reliable forwarding firms with a good track record. They are able to provide you with all the needed options and excellent customer support. However, it’s worth highlighting that such services may be rather expensive especially when it comes to handling small cargoes. If your enterprise is small you definitely do not deal with huge amounts of goods. In such cases, a full truckload is not the best solution for you. Although it offers a lightning-fast delivery for the general freight, the final bill will be significant.
Freight consolidation is an effective way out. It helps you to save time and money. This concept implies the combination of small cargoes from one or multiple shippers into one shipping container. This procedure has several significant advantages. They are the following:
- Reduced costs.
You have to pay only for your shipments. The general bills are divided between all shippers. The companies that require more space in a common container have to pay more. Unlike full truckload, you do not need to pay for free space you do not use because your cargo is too small;
- Reduced damages.
Whether you like it or not but shipping has always been a risky process. Some items can be lost or damaged during transit time. For instance, the LTL mode of transportation means that the tuck is filled with various cargoes from different locations. Several stops should be done to pick up new cargoes in various warehouses. Freight consolidation implies no stops within the route. The risks of damaging or losing your goods are rather low;
- Better relationships between shippers and carriers.
The process of consolidating cargoes allows you to enhance communication with freight forwarders. Moreover, by delivering goods on time, you get more satisfied clients. It benefits the reputation of your enterprise, too;
- This way of freight transportation is eco-friendly.
You use fewer trucks to deliver the items from one point to another. As a result, emissions are reduced. Moreover, while the docks are not overcrowded with vans, the transit period may be shortened.
At the same time, it’s also necessary to point out some disadvantages of this service. You have to deal with complicated scheduling. Nowadays this problem can be solved with the help of innovative technologies. Special apps are able to plan shipping and provide forwarders with the most effective shipping solutions. Yet, it still requires a lot of communication in order to gather shippers and carriers at one time in one place.
To conclude, it’s worth underlining the importance of cargo consolidation for the world economy. More and more small enterprises appear. Local traders and retailers want to distribute their products not only within a particular area but throughout the country or even globally. Freight consolidation allows them to do this in the most effective ways.