Riverside Logistics

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Preparing a Domestic Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) bid in Today’s Market

The first question is why should you be concerned about preparing a domestic USA LTL bid?

Warehouse space is loosening up as is truck capacity. Rates usually follow a downward path when that happens. The market is 30-40% lighter right now so it is a good time for bid requests to go out. There’s a lot of truck(er)s and less business for them to handle. Conditions are ripe for bidding out your business. The freight spot market rates have come down, which indicates that overall truck market(s) are softening. During softening conditions, you are in a good position to bid out your business for annual contracts (or longer).

So how do you go about bidding domestic trucking rates?

Here are the basic steps needed:

  1. Put together your process.
  2. Indicate how many rounds you are going to do in your bids.
  3. Determine which business you are going to bid out.
  4. Decide if you are going to look at bidding all your business or just some of it.
  5. Have a goal for reducing your freight costs. For example, “x % reduction in overall LTL costs”.

Now that you have made those decisions, here are the steps you go through during the actual bid:

  1. Identify which carriers you want to participate in the bid. Get their contact information.
  2. Notify the carriers you have identified that you are preparing to send them a bid.
  3. Collect data at least 6 months (minimum) for all the shipments in play.
  4. Include lane level detail, but don’t show actual costs or carrier SCAC’s for each move.
  5. Use zip code to zip code for the origin and destination data set.
  6. Rollup the data by origin and destination states showing average weights, density, and ship sizes.
  7. Provide a data sheet for each type of product that includes specifics such as:
    1. the value of the product.
    2. the National Motor Freight Classification (NMFC) for the product (if you don’t know ask carriers for this).
    3. the average product ship weight.
    4. type and size of pallets used to ship product.
    5. packaging type(s) such as Cases, Bales, Crates, etc.
    6. Percentages of prepaid and collect freight.
    7. Bill to addresses and contacts information.
  8. Include percentages for types of business handled such as:
    1. Business to Business
    2. Business to Customer
    3. Military or Government business
    4. School/College business
    5. Other types if you have them
  9. Show how much of the business requires additional charges. These are called “assessorial”.
    1. This includes charges for things such as: Liftgate use, Inside delivery, Residential delivery, Delivery Notification or Appointments. Ask for a list from one of your carriers.
    2. Show each assessorial as a percentage of the total shipments and provide a requested target cost for each, if you know it.
    3. Show which assessorials you want the carriers to “WAIVE” the cost on .
  1. Make sure you specify what Base Tariff Rates to use. Carriers traditionally discount off of a rate basis. You need to specify which one they are to use.
    1. Present a target pricing discount level in percentage terms. Discount requests are from a common base rate set. For example, you might ask for an 80% discount from Czarlite 2010. Ask your carriers if they use Czarlite (they should, as it is common used).
    2. Designate whether or not you want the rates to be applicable to Canadian Freight, or freight going into and out of Canada. If the carrier serves or has partnerships with carriers that serve Canada.
    3. Also specify your existing assessorial breakdown percentages so the carrier understands how important these assessorials are to your overall business mix.
  1. Fuel Surcharge (FSC)scales are extremely important to the overall cost structure. Fuel can represent 30% of your total cost. Typically, FSC scales are pegged to the DOT’s weekly national average diesel fuel prices. All LTL fuel surcharges drive off the base line haul rates as a percentage. See example below:
Proposed LTL- Fuel Surcharge
National Average Fuel Price The % Fuel Surcharge Will Be
At Least But less than LTL
$1.05 $1.15 9.40%
$1.15 $1.25 9.90%
$1.25 $1.35 10.40%
  1. A Sample Bill of Lading (BOL) is helpful so the carrier can see what type of BOL you use for you business. In many cases the shipper has a pre-printed BOL that shows the classes/types of products shipped and their NMFC’s.
  2. Pictures of the product being shipped is helpful for the bid as well. Most carriers will ask for pictures of the product to accompany the bids.
  3. Lastly, an LOA, Letter of Authorization, for the carrier to provide pricing is required. This (or a copy) should be written on the companies letterhead and be signed by an officer of the company or someone who is duly authorized to negotiate freight rates.

All of the above is not mandatory for a bid, but it is all extremely important to the quality of the bid results and the ability of the carriers to correctly price your freight. It may seem a little daunting for first timers, but after you have done a couple of bids using the above process, it gets a lot easier over time.

Riverside Logistics has been doing LTL bids for over 20 years and has a proven process to get the best results from RFP’s and RFQ’s for clients. If you would like us to do an LTL, Truckload or Parcel bid for your company we would be happy to do so. One thing we have is a lot of baseline information to compare results of the bids against. This allows us, in your stead, to provide very competitive rate information and produce the best results for your company.

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Why is my Less Than Truckload (LTL) freight pricing going up and my service level going down?

As it stands right now, the LTL (Less-than-Truckload) market is best described as “STRESSED”. This is probably an understatement. All carriers, regional and nation-wide, are saying the same thing. It’s a tough environment out there. Terminals are over-loaded, service levels have deteriorated, embargoes are in place in select markets and pricing is under extreme pressure.

The first question should be “how did we get here”? In one word = PANDEMIC. Carriers anticipated that volumes would dry up due to the pandemic lockdowns. They furloughed and retired staff and drivers only to be left without enough help when the volumes not only returned but increased from pre-pandemic levels.

Now as we fast-forward to today, we are seeing multiple carriers, especially the nationals, shutting down flows into and out of specific terminals to reduce terminal congestion from excess supply. These “embargoes” are causing further stresses to the system. As one carrier shuts off capacity, another gets overloaded, and on and on and on. It’s a domino type effect that is not dissipating quickly.

So, let’s turn to service levels. They are lower, in some cases much lower. Your freight is sitting in the pipeline longer and delaying delivery to your customer. You identify the problem, push for better delivery, but it back-fires on you by causing more delays. The driver shortage is making it very tough for carriers to get the job done.

Finally, the pricing is going up. If you have contracts in place good for you. If you don’t, we would suggest you either get them in place or deal with a 3PL who has solid contractual commitments that won’t rise with the tide.

It’s not all doom and gloom. Carriers are slowly recovering, and capacities are adjusting to volumes. As supply improves, demand subsides, and capacity levels out, the service, pricing and overall market conditions will improve. How fast? Not fast enough. I would anticipate the network balancing in late 2021 or early 2022. Until then, make sure you align with the right partners who can help steer you successfully through this current environment.

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Capacity Load Freight: More Prevalent and More Expensive

LTL carriers are experiencing a significant increase in large shipments, due in part to tight capacity in the US truckload (TL) and less-than-truckload (LTL) markets. While capacity freight currently applies to a smaller percentage of shipments, that number is growing steadily.

Please be aware of the general capacity load rules and charges that (may) apply to larger shipments.

Capacity loads apply when the quantity of freight, in the manner loaded, utilizes a linear length of between 8ft and 15 ft. Some carriers also have weight limits that trigger capacity loads. The weight limits range anywhere from 8,000 to 15,000 lbs.

The linear length is determined by assuming that handling units will be loaded side-by-side when the dimensions allow. So, if you ship 48 square or 48 x 40 inch pallets then 8 pallets will hit 16 ft. You might argue that if you specify that the freight is stackable, one on top of the other, then you could have more than 8 pallets and still not trigger a capacity load situation. Don’t bet on that!! Most LTL carriers consider the entire load as floor stacked when calculating the linear footage. The point is, be careful. Another scenario is if your pallets are “turnable”, meaning they can be turned so the length is shorter. In this case, if you have 8 pallets that are 40 x 48 and are turnable, then, in theory, the length would be 4 times 40” or 13.33 ft rather than 4 x 48” or 16 liner ft. Although this can make a difference in how pricing applies, be careful. Make sure that you understand how the particular carriers’ rules tariff applies to linear feet.

So, what to do?

One suggestion is to have a 3PL handle the move. There are two strategic advantages  to do this.

  1. 3PL’s are well versed about the rules and how they apply.
  2. They will quote you a price that applies, even if they have mis-calculated

Many 3PL’s have negotiated higher linear foot rules with their carriers and this allows them to get more competitive pricing on larger loads. If you are a “cubic” shipper, one who ships pallets loads that don’t necessarily weigh a lot but take up a lot of “cubic” feet, then using a 3PL with higher linear foot rates could really help you.

Capacity Rules and Linear Feet can make freight costs go up significantly, potentially causing a shipment to cost more than it’s worth. Using a 3PL on large LTL shipments allows you to take advantage of the 3PL’s basket of carriers and competitive price structure without risking unpleasant freight costs.

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What is Expedited Freight, and Who Uses it?

Expedited freight services are utilized by shippers to deliver goods to the customer on a specific date and sometimes at a specific time of day. Overall standard, non-expedited, transportation services have delivery accuracy rates that can range from a high of 98% to less than 50% on-time.  This fluctuates based on overall industry capacity and individual carrier management.

The most common mode for expedited freight to move is by air. Freight is picked up and delivered by truck but ends up travelling most of the distance by plane. If possible, expedited freight can be driven in various types of equipment. Of course, the shipment must cross a drivable distance within your timeframe, so sending freight this way only makes sense for short distances (usually less than 500 miles).

The challenge with sending expedited freight by air charter or road is that it is more expensive than standard freight.  Premiums can range anywhere from a 20% to 3 or 4 times the amount normally paid for a standard transit shipment.  Shippers use this method only when it is necessary to maintain customer commitments.

There are six major industries that frequently utilize expedited freight companies for a variety of reasons.

  1. Medical Industry – Used when valuable devices cannot sit in the back of a freight vehicle for long periods of time.
  2. Pharmaceutical Industry – Advantageous for  patients who rely on their medications for survival allowing them to receive  them immediately.
  3. Manufacturing Industry – Meeting deadlines is often a challenge. If parts do not come in on time, projects can get delayed or whole operations can be shut down.  Depending on the size of the operation those costs usually outweigh the cost of the expedited freight.
  4. E-commerce Industry – Retail stores are growing tremendously, and many of them offer their products online. Several big retailers also offer fast shipping options, including two days, overnight, or even same day delivery.
  5. Seasonal – This industry sells most of its products once a year in holiday-themed pop-up stores. With the help of an expedited shipping provider, business should not be running out of stock when customers are buying the most, which helps cut down on inventory costs.
  6. Perishable high value food – For expensive high value food products like Ahi Tuna, getting product across the world in hours instead of days ensures the food can be consumed within hours of receipt.

Expedited freight is used to make sure cargo gets to its location as soon as possible. It is important to consider the increased cost of expedited freight with the cost of not having the product at your location when it is needed.  If you need this type of service reach out to us.  Riverside Logistics can help match your needs with the best value expedited service.

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