Finding Great Transportation

Posted on: 26 March 2020

If your small business is expanding and serving commercial customers in more states, you need to find an efficient way of shipping goods to them. When you supplied maybe one or two other businesses, a regular overnight shipping company might have been fine. But when occasional demand for your products blossoms into a steady demand in several cities, those businesses that rely on your products need a better way to get a hold of their larger orders. When you have too much to ship via the postal service but not enough to fill an entire fleet of semis, you have to look at intermediate options. Fortunately, there are quite a few.

Contracted Small Trucking Companies

You could arrange for a small or moderately sized trucking company to dedicate some of its trucks to transporting your goods. You might not need semis, but if you just need a dedicated truck to bring your goods to a few locations in one area, you can see if a smaller trucking company would be willing to contract with you. This is the most straightforward way to do it, but it's also the most complicated to find as you may have to do all the negotiating without a third party helping you out.

Train Cargo Transport

Another option for regions farther away is to arrange for the goods to be taken by rail. There are "ports" around the country that are not located on the coasts, but instead act as a transfer point for items brought from coastal ports. These items are then placed on trains that distribute the goods deeper inside the country. If you have items coming from overseas, you can arrange for the goods to go by truck to these ports, and then be transferred onto trains that bring the items to separate towns. At that point, another trucking company would pick them up and bring them to your customers.

Less-Than-Truckload Shipments

Another option is to contract with larger carriers to have them take small loads in any spare space they have. In other words, when large trucks -- the semis -- take loads, they often have extra space inside; they aren't always filled to the brim. However, freight forwarders and logistics companies can find small loads that fill the space and reduce the need for separate trips later on. You can have one of these logistics companies find space for your items on a truck headed to the city that the items need to go to.

It may sound complicated now, but you'll quickly find out which ways work best for you. Contact logistics services now to start planning.