Freight vs Regular Shipping [What’s The Difference?]

As a business owner, knowing the finer points between freight and regular shipping will help you make smarter decisions.

What is the Difference Between Freight and Regular Package Shipping?

Are you shipping packages and parcels, light-weight items or heavier products?

Package and parcel delivery have a few discrete features different from freight shipping. Depending on what it is you need moved, either freight or regular package shipping may be better for you, but which one?

Learn about freight vs regular package shipping and see how a strategic LTL or FTL ally can help your goods move.

It’s common for small businesses that aren’t familiar with these types of services to get confused. Let’s consider freight and regular package shipping, and see what might work best for your business.

In the simplest term, freight shipping is useful when you’re shipping palletized items whereas package shipping might be useful when shipping one-off items.

Freight Shipping in a Nutshell:

• Larger loads, such as palettes of products that’ve been packaged together or wrapped as one or more.
• For a typical large haul trip, loads can range from weights between 5,000 to 70,000 lbs.
• It could take 1-3 days for a delivery to be made
• The truck can be larger than 58-feet
• Hundreds of miles can be covered in one trips
• Oversized loads such as heavy equipment can weigh well over 110,000 lbs.
• Usually making one trip, from point A to point B

When is Freight Shipping a Good Choice?

Freight shipping is the perfect choice when you’re moving larger loads than any other form of road transport can deliver. When you need a transport service that can ship multiple tons of product from one point to another ,either for a client or for your own business, then freight is the only realistic option.

You can deliver many of thousands of pounds to your own warehouse from your production facility. If for instance, you need to move a large quantity of inventory from one warehouse to another, this is by far the best option.

When you simply have too big a load to make with a small truck, larger trucks can be your saving grace. Another way to look at it is you have gone beyond the typical LTL service and into TL territory.

For another example, if you require moving of a large piece of machinery, rather than breaking it up into parts, a freight truck can lift the load all in one go to determine whether it needs to be.

Freight shipping is typically used by large businesses that need to move large quantities of products to their depots. Moving straight from their own manufacturing plants, they transport large amounts of product.

These items could be cars, food, raw materials, crude, etc, which is shipped to a depot. From there, smaller trucks then distribute the loads to businesses and or local storage facilities.

The Basics of Parcel and Package Shipping

• In terms of capacity, a package truck can have anywhere between 50-100 parcels depending on the average size.
• Individual package loads are typically less than 150 lbs.
• Small parcels and packages are the main contents of a package truck
• Trucks are usually no longer than 28-feet
• A package truck will make multiple stops throughout the day, as in a milk run, delivering orders to customers at their door.

When is Package and Parcel Shipping the Better Choice?

As mentioned above, package shipping is a shipment that is under 150 lbs. However, it can be considered light freight. Most package companies will consider it a larger package load.

Package shipping is mainly used for courier services. These are the many smaller delivery trucks you’ll see on virtually any street. Such vehicles are a medium to small van or truck, delivering products door to door.

Consider the kind of truck you see pull up to your home when you have ordered something from Amazon, this is package delivery.

Regular package shipping is also usually restricted to local areas. Therefore unlike freight hauling, the service is for a local area, such as a city, town, or rural zone.

Smaller parcel shipping should be reserved for businesses that are fulfilling product delivery to customers’ doors. However, the service can also be used to move inventory from warehouse to warehouse though usually reserved for a local area.

Still Need Help? Get a Hassle-Free Freight Quote Today

If you still have questions understanding the differences when it comes to freight and regular shipping, let an experienced partner handle your next freight shipment.

Brimich Logistics is an expert when it comes to 3PL and freight shipping. From small business to medium and large-sized business that require reliable large load shipping services, we have served our clients with pride, expertise and consistency.

Looking for a dependable partner to move your products? Brimich Logistics handles truckload and less than truckload shipping. Just let us know when and we’ll handle the rest.