subject: When To Use Ltl And What It Is [print this page] For those who are in the southeast, you may need to find a southeast service that will ship your items to another state or even country. There are a few different types of services available though for you to choose from. The courier service you decide on can depend on a few different factors such as size and fees or rates. It can also depend on the weight as some companies have limits as to what they will deliver. LTL happens to be a common term that is used in the courier business. This simply means "less than truck load." This term refers to any shipment that will take up far less than a truck load. However, an opposite term, FTL, means "full truck load", and refers to any shipment that is equal to or more than a truck load. This is for businesses mainly as they ship in bulk and these shipments justify the full cost of a full truck load. However, for people who have smaller loads to ship, using LTL services are recommended. If you have a load that is smaller than LTL, there are other services that are offered such as small parcel services.
LTL loads can range from 100 up to 10,000 pounds. This is a rather wide weight range, and this is something used to accommodate that is large and bulky and can't be shipped using a courier car, but it's too small for a large truck to ship. This can include a variety of items as well. LTL loads are something that several smaller businesses use for their shipping needs as they are not often times dealing with large loads that those who use FTL are.
Due to the fact of how LTL shipments operate, it takes a bit longer than a FTL shipment does. Trucks will typically go to a pickup destination, mainly on a certain schedule that is set up by a southeast service and the customer, and then the items are taken to a terminal. This is where it's then sorted out and then weighed. It is then put onto a larger truck for longer hauls. At some point along the route, the truck will have to stop at another location to be broken down to a smaller vehicle which will then take the items to their final destination. There is however one down side to this. That is that there may be several re-distributions before your items get to where they are going.
