Nationwide Cross country shipping can take many forms depending on the needs of the shipper, importer or manufacturer. Rates can vary dramatically depending on the freight shipping lane and season. Many geographic regions have their own commodity specific peak seasons such as peaks in the Midwest for grain harvesting season or in Florida during fruit season.
Here are a few tips on navigating nationwide cross country shipping.
Plan your supply chain
Your first step is to analyze what shipment lanes you typically move cross country freight on. Some lanes such as Los Angeles to Chicago, Los Angeles to Atlanta, Los Angeles to Memphis, Atlanta to Chicago, Atlanta to New York are easy conversions for intermodal, which will typically cost 20% or so less than over the road trucking. Write out common shipment lanes and rough guess average monthly volume on each. This will provide the basis for analyzing shipment options on each route.
Keep in mind in some situations it will be more cost effective to ship enough volume early for your peak season then hold that inventory in a warehouse until you need it, rather than shipping the freight via expedited methods during the peak season. Just in time inventory has become a commonplace practice, however it can also increase costs and decrease your supply chain reliability as there might not be enough capacity when you need it on certain lanes.
Evaluate modes
With a detailed list of lanes and expected volumes you can analyze which lanes will be the most efficient to run with over the road trucks, and which lanes will provide massive cost savings by switching to intermodal options. Intermodal will typically be more cost effective on lanes between major cities that are over 500 miles. Any cross country lane, such as California to the Atlanta, California to Chicago or Florida to New York will nearly always be more cost effective with intermodal transportation. Effective Inventory management is critical to avoiding expedited shipping methods and reducing rush delivery costs.
Particularly if you are importing international shipments, make sure to plan and book these shipments as early as possible to allow time for ocean shipping and to avoid capacity and cost constraints with associated with the peak season rush.
Right partners
As you finish the evaluation phase of planning your cross country shipping lanes, look for logistics partners that can provide for multiple shipment modes and offer visibility technology and analytics to effectively handle your freight. Particularly for small and medium sized businesses choosing the right partner can reduce your costs and the amount of time you need to spend executing your logistics plan. A digitally enabled provider will have easy dashboard style freight booking as well as detailed analytics and tracking information so you always know where your freight is without having to make numerous phone calls to trucking carriers.
Shipment Analysis
Review shipment data on the shipments you move to analyze costs over time and how seasonality affects cost. Over time you can fine tune your cross country shipping plan to more effectively take advantage or seasonal pricing fluctuations. Many times as well, over time you will notice that a certain region tends to have service disruptions throughout certain parts of the year, in the case of this, you can route freight via a different mode on those lanes, or alter the shipment time to avoid delays and additional costs.
You will refine your nationwide shipping plan by constantly reviewing shipment analytics data. We always encourage shippers, importers, exporter and manufactures to always choose to work with partners who offer shipment analytics tools as the return on investment you will get from carefully analyzing shipment data will make your entire supply chain more efficient and allow you to better plan your resources and inventory management. As volumes increase, this will start to have a major impact on your company’s bottom line.
With Zmodal nationwide cross country shipping is easy and affordable. We provide nationwide supply chain services and nationwide cross country intermodal coverage whether your volumes are small or large. Drop us a line if you would like us to take a look at your cross country supply chain and help optimize it for better cost efficiency and service reliability.
