If you are planning to purchase pallets of electronics, clothing, or other liquidation items, you will have to ship your purchase by what is refereed to as LTL, or less than truckload. If you have never shipped or received pallets of merchandise by a freight carrier there are some basics you should know before arranging a shipment. If you are purchasing pallets of customer returns or shelf pulls from a liquidator, chances are they will arrange the pickup and delivery to your location, but there are a few things you should be aware of:
Lift-gate service: If you do not have a forklift at your location, you will need to have the freight company deliver your pallets using a trailer equipped with a lift-gate. The lift-gate allows the driver of the truck to raise and lower the contents of the trailer without a forklift. Using a lift-gate, the driver will be able to lower your pallets to the ground and use a pallet jack to maneuver your shipment with ease. Having a freight company utilize a lift-gate equipped trailer will end up costing you approximately $50-$100 per shipment.
Residential Delivery: If you must have your pallets delivered to a residential address, there is an up charge assessed. The fee will vary, but averages an additional $35-$75 per delivery. Also note, large trucks cannot maneuver apartments complexes or residential streets that are too narrow. In this case, you would be best to have your pallets delivered to a commercial address of to the nearest freight terminal close to your home.
Missed Delivery: If the driver of the freight truck must come back to your location after an unsuccessful delivery attempt, guess what? Yes, another up charge. Make sure to be available on the scheduled delivery date.
One last word of freight advice: purchase as many pallets as you can afford as the freight for multiple pallets will lower your inventory cost per unit. For example, if a single pallet costs $250 to ship to you, the second may only be an additional $125, and so on.
This is one of our many Liquidation Boot Camp posts where we talk about the basics of liquidation product sourcing. If you’re new to the idea of purchasing liquidations, please review more Liquidation Boot Camp Posts here.
