Shipping by motor freight

It’s common for websites that ship products via parcel services to calculate shipping costs, making it easy for buyers to learn total costs before ordering. Very few sites can calculate LTL or motor freight shipments for heavy, bulky equipment like industrial shelving, wire security partitions, warehouse racks, or conveyors.

That changes recently, as www.cisco-eagle.com can now provide instant shipping costs.

Using the website to configure freight costs

We recently implemented a freight estimation service on our online catalog that lets you browse to any page, enter your zip code, and receive an estimated shipping cost for that item.

An example: pallet rack. Scroll down on the right side of the page, and you’ll see the “estimate freight” box. This provides you with a quick estimate of what it may cost to ship that item to your facility. If you change the quantity, the shipping estimate also changes along with it.

Once you’ve added an item to your shopping cart, there will be more detailed shipping questions that can help us provide a more detailed, accurate shipping cost. As always, you can choose to order online or consult with our professional customer service staff for assistance.

This makes Cisco-Eagle one of the very few industrial products websites to provide shipping costs online, in real time, right when you need it.

Some freight estimation notes:

• The site cannot estimate freight costs for orders over 10,000 pounds, or certain items, like mezzanines or yard ramps, that require flatbed shipment.
• Also, since motor freight companies have minimum shipping requirements, some items will be costly to ship one or two – often the same as it costs to ship five or more of the same thing.
• The site can only calculate freight costs within the United States and Canada.
• You do not have to use our estimate. You can designate your own freight company if you wish.

If you have questions, please contact us.

The story cited the rising cost of oil and increasing demand for diesel in other countries as contributing factors to the rising prices. I am sure that the current value of our dollar has also affected the price at the pump.

Those increasing fuel prices affect the delivery cost of capital equipment. Most freight companies add a fuel surcharge to the cost of delivery. As the price of fuel fluctuates, they adjust fuel surcharges accordingly. One freight company we work with adjusts their surcharges weekly.

So what does this have to do with material handling equipment? Most of it can’t be shipped by one of the package delivery services. The brown truck is not going to deliver a pair of 42″ wide by 144″ tall pallet rack uprights. It is too large and has to ship by a motor freight carrier.

From our website, there are a couple of places where you can find the estimated cost to ship most items with a motor freight carrier. We have a standalone freight estimator, and also link to a convenient pop-up freight estimator from the product pages in our catalog.

In the estimators, you only need to enter the origin zip code, the destination zip code, the weight, and the freight class for that product. This origin zip, weight, and freight class is included on every product page in the catalog, and on many other pages as well.

You may ask, why an estimated cost and not the actual cost? Remember those fuel surcharges that change every week? If you obtain a freight estimate today, there is no guarantee that the cost to ship that item will be the same next week.

Many products we sell are kept in stock, but there are others which have extended delivery times, some as long as 6-8 weeks because the product is built to order. From experience we know that any price you get today will not be valid 6-8 weeks later.

This is one of the reasons that we can’t give you a firm freight price from within the shopping cart at the time of the order. When you place an order we contact the freight companies, get a firm freight quote that considers the lead time, and send you an e-mail with the cost to ship your order. You then have the option to cancel the order if the cost of freight adds too much to the total price. Many times for a smaller order that ships by motor freight, the cost of the freight is greater than the cost of the product. We understand that may not work for you.

If you don’t want to go the freight estimator route, you can also fill out one of our product inquiry forms, and request a quote for that product including the freight.

As I started out this post talking about the price of fuel, keep in mind that it will affect the cost of delivering everything. Freight costs will continue to rise and fall as market conditions fluctuate. It can add a significant cost to your requirement which you can’t afford to ignore. After all, there is no such thing as free freight.

According to Operations & Fulfillment, labor developments may have just as much impact over the next few years. Over the next 5 years, the latest UPS contract amounts to a $9 per hour labor cost increase, which will certainly make its way downstream to shipping charges. Developments in other companies such as FedEx and labor negotiations across the shipping and freight world mean that even if fuel prices stabilize, it’ll cost you more to ship and receive products.

Curt Barry’s article at Operations & Fulfillment recommends some of the steps you can take…

1. Look at transportation in the context of the total supply chain efficiency. (see Curt’s article for tips).
2. Institute vendor compliance policies, include routing guides for inbound carriers. Do not permit vendor-controlled freight..
3. For high returns businesses, use return services.
4. Join an inbound freight consortium with contracted carriers and negotiated best rates.
5. Do your homework. You have to understand your volume and shipping characteristics, etc.
6. Consider a freight consultant, which can reduce costs 15% to 25%.