Advantages and Disadvantages of Less-Than-Truckload Shipping

Stephen Patrick Day is a longtime Houston entrepreneur who guides Logistics Group International (LGI) and provides freight brokerage solutions. In his leadership role at LGI, Stephen Day coordinates with a wide range of freight carriers, including those who provide less-than-truckload (LTL) shipping solutions.

Distinct from full truckload shipping, LTL involves transporting freight that does not use up the entire truck space or weight limit. An advantage of the LTL approach is that more than one shipper can share space within a single truck, with each company paying only for their portion of the entire load.

There are some issues involved with LTL, including the necessity of carefully breaking shipments into palletized or crated packages that ensure the various shippers’ materials stay intact and don’t get mixed up or damaged.

In addition, there are often multiple destinations involved, which can add to the transit time. With more unloading and loading stages involved, there is also a correspondingly greater risk of damage to goods during the handling process. In general, shipments of greater than 15,000 pounds or 10 pallets of the product will require a full truckload approach.