The supply chain costs can be a huge budget eater for many businesses, large and small. Getting your cost reduced using Less than Truckload (LTL) shipping can help your profits skyrocket. There are a number of other supply chains best practices that can be supported by taking a strategic approach with your LTL carrier.
Ways to Reduce Supply Chain Costs With LTL Truckload Transportation
The pandemic has hit companies hard; faced with a sudden ability to go into operation again, most companies are also faced with the additional choice of cutting costs in order to keep up and get back to work.
Reduce Your Warehouse Staffing Using LTL
Finding an LTL carrier that can offer extra services for a competitive price can help you save money in staffing and warehouse costs. If your LTL shipper is able to take over the burden of paperwork and follow-up on orders, you will save time and money in administrative costs. Choose an LTL carrier that offers services such as proof of delivery, purchase order confirmation, customized analytic reporting, and being a liaison between your business and consignees.
Combine Long-Haul Shipments
If you ship long haul more than once a week to the same customer, an LTL carrier with very fast transit times will enable you to combine shipments. If the carrier is fast enough on a consistent basis, you could ship once any day of the week, even Friday, to meet Monday or Tuesday deadlines across the country. Or ship on Monday for delivery on Friday of the same week. Go from two weekly shipments to one and the weekly shipping cost for that customer is dramatically reduced.
Altering Insurance Plans
Gas isn’t the only expenditure that almost all supply chain companies share. One thing most supply chain companies can’t do without is insurance – and just like gas, it’s something that many companies out there might be paying too much for. Assess your current insurance provider and plan if you realize that your overhead costs on insurance are too high. Altering your insurance plans could be one of the best ways to save.
Servicing & Maintaining Vehicles
Cutting costs doesn’t have to mean cutting into your workforce. One of the first things useful to a supply chain company is servicing and maintaining their fleet. This might seem like an added expenditure that’s unnecessary at such a difficult time, but it can also earn its money back within just a few weeks – and having a well-maintained fleet ends up costing less in breakdowns and even in gas.
Use LTL Carriers with a Direct Loading Network
Freight claims not only to affect your bottom line, but they also affect your relationships with your customers. There are costs involved in filing claims and to make the customer happy, you may have to cover the cost of expedited shipping to replace the product. One way to combat freight claims is to use an LTL carrier that uses a direct loading network. The less the freight shipment is handled, the less chance there is for freight to become damaged or lost. Also, make sure to ask your potential LTL carriers what there claims ratios are. When you do have to make things right with a client because of a claim, you’ll want to be working with an LTL carrier that offers tiers of money-back-guaranteed services and transit times that can rival air shipping prices.
Improve Vendor Compliance
The compliance requirements of big-box retailers are complex, time-consuming, and tricky to manage in-house. Look for an LTL carrier that has a compliance services group with the expertise to take over the process. It also helps if it is a preferred or approved carrier for major mass retailers. Besides being free of the administrative burden, you will save money on chargeback costs and improve your compliance scores. Another benefit of a well-managed vendor compliance department is that the carrier may be able to offer innovative solutions for other specialized shipping needs, such as difficult deliveries or bulk mail center distribution.
Do you have COVID-19 relief?
Many businesses have been negatively affected by COVID-19. This means that many banks have released some form of COVID-19 relief that could make things easier for businesses who claim from the fund. If you’re with a bank, check if they offer any type of relief options. Where banks don’t offer it, some companies can turn to their local government for state assistance in other circumstances that could help to lift your business out of the disasters created by COVID-19. Usually, you’ll have to provide proof to the bank on how you have been affected. Hang on to all proof and financial statements of how you have been affected by the times.
The Junction LLC | Truckload Shipping
As a leader in the transportation industry, we demand excellence from our entire team. Our team at The Junction LLC strives to deliver the best possible customer service and by a desire to solve our customer’s toughest transportation and supply chain needs.
Our team is dedicated to serving our customers and will take the necessary action to deliver our customers’ products safely, efficiently, and on-time. This is our promise to you!
Nationwide Services include:
- FTL (Full Truck Load) Shipping
- LTL (Less Than Truck Load) Shipping
- Transportation of refrigerated, dry and bulk shipments
- 3PL Warehousing and Logistics
- Contract Warehousing
- Trucking Freight Brokerage
Trucking & Freight Shipping Services:
- Overweight,
- Over-dimension
- Time-sensitive shipments
- LTL (Less-Than-Truckload)
- FTL (Full Truckload)
- Flatbed
- Flatbed LTLRGN (removable gooseneck lowboy)
- RGN (removable gooseneck lowboy)
- Maxi’s / A-Train / B-Train
- Heavy Haul
- Over Dimensional
- Dry Van
- Dry Van LTL
- Refrigerated
- Refrigerated LTL
- Power Only
Additional Services:
- Our sister companies can also provide warehousing in our food-grade facilities, cross-docking, and contract warehousing.