"So our Shipping Manager gets a call..." Topic

(set up) Due to the density rules with freight companies, it is actually cheaper to ship with a heavy pallet load than having a, "too light," pallet load. It is standard across most LTL trucklines and FAK agreements.

So after working our actual weight and cube, if the shipment is light our company include a 50# sandbag to be able to make weight and get a better shipping rate.

So the Shipping Manager gets a call. Customer is curious why we are delivering him a sandbag. Shipping Manager replies, "Oh, well, you see if it turns out you do not like our product, we provide the sand for you to pound."

(yes, of course as he was saying it, he was begging inside, "pleaseplease have a sense of humor, pleasepleaseplease," and swore to himself he'd never do that again…)

Indeed there are all sorts of ways to reduce freight
charges. Our Traffic department (years ago) had a long-
service employee who had the primary task of auditing
freight invoices and doing charge-backs and trade-offs
with the trucking companies, airlines and even the
railroad.

I too hope that customer had a sense of humor

I never thought of that trick, and I was in charge of researching freight rates!
When you are shipping die cut polyurethane foam, you go with other workarounds. Like chartering a full truck. Weekly.

Most trucking companies are loathe to have empty trucks. We used a line that would take organ meats to a dog food plant from slaughterhouses in the Midwest in a refrigerator trailer and then go back with a truckload of our diecut automotive parts. After the trucker hosed out the trailer of course.

Winston, with respect, you were educated and trained
in science, not bureaucracy…:-)

Well, I wore many hats.

shouldn't have needed to actually use a physical weight to get the next weight break

all it should take is just declaring the higher chargeable weight

used to do it all the time

we would often add the extra chargeable weight as a courtesy to the customer if they did not notice the option

TNE, it's called "bumping" and while you may have used to do it all the time, there are a few freight companies that do not allow it anymore.

Sadly, many are under pressure to squeeze every extra penny out of every possibility, and some just get a personal thrill out of it… We stopped using USFR period because shipments going through the Denver Hub were getting penalized. The Inspector there would charge the cube of the pallet length, width and then the height of the inside of the truck if you had a "Do Not Stack" label. His logic was that you are making the entire height unusable, so charge you for it. No one else has ever done that before or since, but he did, because in his view, he could.

Speaking to the USFR Rep got us nowhere -- so fine -– he cost them our business.