Companies waste huge amounts of money each year shipping air. In fact, shared truckload innovator Flock Freight estimates that North American companies spend $7 billion annually on truckload (TL) freight that ships with varying amounts of unused space.
For standard TL trailers, the average space utilization when a truck is not completely full comes in at just 66% per shipment, according to Flock Freight. That is the equivalent of moving five out of every 100 trucks completely empty. The traditional request-for-proposal (RFP) process is responsible for much of this wasted money and space.
Shippers use the RFP process to identify the best prices and methods for moving their freight, but there isn’t much flexibility built into the process. Typically, standard less-than-truckload (LTL) and TL offerings constrain shippers to a small number of predetermined options. This means that shippers with too much freight for an LTL shipment often end up with a whole TL trailer they cannot fill, leading to inefficient space utilization and higher-than-necessary shipping costs.
Flock Freight changes this dynamic with its shared truckload offering, combining shipments with similar pickup and destination locations onto the same trailer in order to optimize the amount of space available and prevent shippers from paying to ship air. This approach to resource optimization benefits shippers, carriers and the environment alike.
Flock Freight was the first and only company to guarantee shared truckload service, and it is taking its dedication to helping shippers save money one step further with its new Instant Prebate program.
Flock Freight designed Instant Prebate to provide automatic cost savings on contracted TL freight. Savings vary by lane, commodity and time of shipment, but they can come in as high as 50% on some loads. According to proprietary Flock Flock data, those moving larger shipments — up to 44 linear feet and 36,000 pounds — save an average of 16% per shipment using shared truckload.
With Instant Prebate, shippers lock in contracted TL rates then tender the load to Flock Freight at least 24 hours before pickup. Shippers provide dimensions and size information for the shipment; if it is less than a full truckload, Flock Freight will issue an instant prebate based on trailer utilization. The company is the first and only one to offer this benefit and prevent shippers from paying for empty space on the front end.
The process is risk-free, and shippers never pay more than their contracted rate, regardless of load size. A clear winner for the shipper’s bottom line, this approach also provides environmental benefits. Maximizing trailer space minimizes waste. In fact, shared truckload eliminates the need for 60% of the fuel that a traditional LTL shipment uses, according to the company. On average, shared truckload drivers travel a 20% longer route from start to finish than traditional TL drivers, negating some of the gain from saved fuel. At the end of the day, however, emissions savings average out to about 40% over the popular hub-and-spoke model. These impressive results helped secure Flock Freight’s status earlier this year as a Certified B Corporation, signifying its commitment to green business practices.
It pays to be on the leading edge, and the shared truckload model is already helping shippers save money. Flock Freight’s Instant Prebate program makes that process simpler, quicker and more straightforward than ever.