The good news for just about any company that ships palletized goods, brick-and-mortar and e-commerce retailers included, is that external market factors continue to shift in their favor.

Shippers have regained their pre-pandemic bargaining leverage over trucking rates as capacity supply once again exceeds the demand for it – a similar version of which is playing out in the ocean, air, and less-than-truckload markets as well. Combine that with healthy inventory levels and lower diesel prices, and supply chain managers have a lot of reasons to smile these days.

But as the road opens up ahead of them, there’s still plenty for businesses to frown about. Too many are still defaulting to inefficient shipping methods.

According to a survey of 200 transportation and logistics professionals conducted by Drive

Research and Flock Freight, truckload shippers are sending partially empty trucks out on the road nearly half the time and they are choosing to pay to ship air when they don’t need to.

That’s an unnecessary expense on top of the thousands of dollars in damaged freight fees and delayed shipment fines shippers incurred in 2022.

If your business is shipping goods this year, here are three suggestions that will help you take advantage of better economic conditions and gain more control over your costs:

1. Avoid unnecessary damage and late fees.

With traditional less-than-truckload (LTL) shipping, your goods are at the mercy of an indirect route. Every hub, spoke, and terminal consolidation point creates one more opportunity for damage, delay, and loss.

In 2022, 84 percent of LTL shippers reported being charged often with unplanned accessorial fees to cover additional labor, equipment, time, or fuel. On average, they paid nearly $2,000 for each damaged and late shipment – depending on the value of the product being shipped.

2. Don’t pay to ship air.

Reserving an entire truck might offer better peace of mind for on-time and damage-free deliveries, but how many shippers actually fill their trucks to capacity?

According to the survey, barely half. The remaining 45 percent left nearly 25 linear feet

of deck space (out of 53 available) unfilled. So almost every other truckload-booked route (TL) is carrying 28 linear feet of air, fully paid for. That’s the equivalent of one in five TL loads speeding down the highway completely empty.

Shipping empty trucks when you don’t have to is hard to justify — in any economic environment.

3. Choose shared truckload for best results.

Between LTL and TL, the data reveals a sobering truth: even in a shipper-friendly market, neither offer ideal outcomes in many cases.

Thankfully, Flock Freight’s shared truckload (STL) offers a smarter alternative. By pooling freight, shippers only pay for the space they need while avoiding the inefficiency and cost of traditional shipping modes. Goods stay safe and terminal-free, driven in one truck by one driver all the way to their destination.

The technology Flock Freight has developed and patented pools freight at a larger scale for multiple customers. Our proprietary algorithms find and fill the empty spaces in trucks, putting freight on the most efficient routes.

Shippers should set a clear goal for the rest of this year: double down on the favorable market by eliminating avoidable fees and wasted truck capacity. With rates running lower than they have in years and supply chains under much less pressure, businesses simply have more freedom to choose better alternatives.

Shared truckload technology offers a new level of flexibility and efficiency that is changing the way we move goods in a $1 trillion industry sector in the United States and $7 trillion worldwide. Now is the time to take advantage of it.

Driven by a passion to revolutionize supply chain networks, Chris Pickett brings an extensive background in logistics development to the Flock Freight team. As Chief Operating Officer, he focuses on growth acceleration and the execution of our ambitious innovation agenda. Chris has over 20 years of commercial experience operating across global supply chain management, enterprise software development, and transportation market economics. Chris earned his undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering from Virginia Tech, an MBA from Georgia Tech, and a Master of Engineering in Logistics degree from MIT – where he wrote his graduate thesis on supply chain resilience under Dr. Yossi Sheffi. Eager to expand his logistics expertise beyond surface transportation, he went on to earn a U.S. Customs Broker license in 2021.