2020 vision has been anything but clear! Especially when it comes to your freight cost and service levels. As companies evaluate different business options, working with a third-party logistics company (3PL) on a local level can be easily overlooked. Because a Third-Party Logistics company has numerous truck routes and lanes that are created by serving multiple customers there is a good chance that they have a local service that could save you money, and improve the flexibility and reliability of your shipments. Below are a few ways that a 3PL can help provide cost saving solutions for your local freight!
Local Routes
Local deliveries range between 0-250 miles from origin. A local 3PL with a variety of customers and deliveries has many options for their customers.
For example, loads shipping out of Richmond, VA for delivery down in the Tidewater area will match up with a local load coming back to the Richmond, VA area. Also, we may have 2 or 3 other customers we can consolidate on the Richmond truck either on the head haul or backhaul. Depending on the size of the load, it may fit on 24ft box truck vs a 53ft trailer which could offer savings.
Another advantage of local routes is accessibility. This includes last minute daily pickups and emergency pickups because drivers are delivering within the local area. A 3PL can also drop trailers at a customer’s location for convenience for loading or unloading their product. Some customers with limited warehouse space utilize drop trailers for storing product at their location or at the 3PL’s location. Matching resources is one of the many ways a 3PL provides value allowing companies to be very flexible in a dynamic market, providing just in time deliveries, and capturing opportunities that may not be able to with your current resources.
Cross Dock
Another advantage of a 3PL with warehouse assets is the ability to cross dock product. Example: An inbound truckload shipment comes in and our customer doesn’t have time or space to unload it. A 3PL can provide this service as well as coordinate transportation that will maximize savings. Another opportunity to utilize cross dock services is receiving ocean containers to be unloaded and reloaded into a 53’ Dry Van for final delivery to the customer. This same scenario would apply with rail cars. Customers can take advantage of lower rail rates and have product deliver via rail for storage at a 3PL facility and then trucked for customer delivery. Cross docking is a great short-term solution to reallocate your freight quickly, efficiently, without limiting your resources.
Drayage
A 3PL has the ability to flex up or down depending on the volume of containers arriving at the port. Businesses may not always have an available driver and truck to retrieve containers from the port nor space to store the container for efficient processing. 3PL’s can often store your container at their facility to save on port demurrage fees then unload and handle for final delivery to the customer. A 3PL can often provide this service for both IMPORT and EXPORT loads.
Riverside Logistics can provide all these services for you so your resources can be utilized to focus on your business not the business of moving freight!
