Common Carrier Vs. LTL

Commodities are usually shipped via common carriers by class. This class determines the rate structure for the items shipped. For example, cubicle wall panels are class 70 and trade show freight is class 125. The US Postal service also has ‘Book Rate’ for parcels.

These classifications are generally assigned to commodity groups shipping from warehouse to warehouse. In my experience most, if not all items shipping or recovering from a trade show are class 125 due to the sensitive nature of the shipment both in physical construction as well as time constraints. These commodities are generally not under the same strict date/time deadlines as trade show freight, Expected waiting time and the resulting down time for equipment also factor into the equation. Also, keep in mind that common carrier rates increase based on delivery to convention centers as well as time critical requirements by the shipper. Many common carrier shipments requiring strict delivery times ( Deliver Monday, June 23 at 0800) at not subject to discounts and are quite expensive. Shipments requiring delivery on a certain day, but not a certain time ( Deliver Monday, June 23, anytime) can be discounted, but not as heavily as freight using standard transit times and delivery windows.

For example:

Common carrier, (1) Skid , 1000 pounds ATL – Las Vegas

Regular shipping $609.00
To a trade show $756.60
To deliver on a specific day $861.73
By noon $913.00

And this does not include special fees like declared value, weekend delivery or pick-up.

We do not use classifications. We ship LTL by Zone and Dedicated partial trailers by skid position. This uses an entirely different freight network and generally does not involve common carriers. The LTL freight system uses strictly a weight system. Either actual or dimensional, whichever is greater. For most freight we use the dedicated partial freight where we by space by volume only. This allows us to provide flat rate pricing as well as deliver to, or recover from, convention centers without additional or adjusted fees.