Saving Money on LTL Freight Shipping.

By Joel Van Patten
Written on December 6, 2019

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I am building a Freight Management System (FMS) for one of my clients. This saves them money in several ways.

• A more efficient workflow for creating Bill of Ladings (BOL), getting quotes, and scheduling pickups allows them to gain productivity without increasing their labor costs.
• They can easily compare rates between different carriers, allowing them to select the cheapest options on a per shipment basis.

The 2nd item in the list can be a real money saver. On some shipments I have seen an $80 difference between the most expensive and the least expensive quote. The catch is that the carrier with the expensive quote might be cheaper on a different shipment. Being able to compare quotes on each shipment lets my client cherry-pick the cheapest carrier on every order they ship out.

Of course there are some very good rate quote systems out there. The problem with all of them is the time it takes to import your shipment details into their quote system.

For my client it made sense to integrate an FMS into their e- commerce website. That way the shipment details can be automatically determined when a customer places an order. The bulk of the work of getting the required information for a quote is done for you by the FMS integration.