How Backloading can Lower your Business Costs

Director, Freight People

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Transportation and shipment fees can dramatically affect a business’ success, profitability, and sales. Consider for a moment major online companies like eBay. Plenty of their resellers provide free international shipment fees on their products in order to get people to actually buy from this popular digital market. Compare these free international shipping fees to localised businesses and their local transportation fees and you will quickly notice exactly why so many online shoppers are starting to prefer a major online shopping center like eBay above local businesses with higher quality products.

It is critical for companies to do what they can to cut back on business costs and especially on transportation costs. Backloading is a solution that won’t just lower your business cost but could also increase your sales and success.

What exactly is backloading?

If you are not familiar with the term backloading then you can definitely read the following definitions of backloading so you can see how this shipping method applies to your company.

1st Definition When a transportation company or freight service loads more than one transportable package in the same truck for more than one client, it is called backloading. These different packages from different customers can go to the same location or different locations depending on the flexibility of the freight company.

2nd Definition Backloading also happens when a company transports a shipment of goods to one location and returns with another shipment of packages to the freight headquarters.

These two definitions of backloading are basically the opposite of direct transport as in the cases with furniture moving companies where a truck will transport a load of a single customer’s goods and return back to the headquarters empty.

Why backloading is a better solution for businesses

Cut business costs – One of the biggest reasons to consider backloading is so your company can ship goods to customers a lot more affordable since a lot of different companies are using the same van to transport goods.

Affordable trips more frequently – Freight services that use the backloading method can offer their customers a much more affordable rate much more frequently. This basically means your company can almost count on constant reduction in business cost.

You also reduce your carbon footprint when you use backloading

Another big reason to consider backloading for your company is that this is a much more eco-friendly transportation solution. Delivery trucks that do backloading cut back on a lot of trips between locations because they carry a lot more cargo. Pollution on the roads and fuel consumption is greatly reduced and backloading is a much greener solution as a result.

The drawbacks of backloading

All business methods and strategies have some negative attributes that need to be considered before you make the final switch. Backloading, for example, has drawbacks such as the risk of mixed up packages, the fact that packaging has to be much more compact and delivery schedules are often limited and very strict. Most customers are, however incredibly lenient towards these drawbacks of backloading, especially if they can cut back on shipping or delivery costs for their purchased products.

Start doing backloading easier with reduced risk

If you are considering backloading then you have two major options. You can either hire a delivery service and look for other companies, organisations and individuals that want to ship products along with you or you can use Freight Broker Australia. Freight Broker Australia already has a backloading strategy in place and we function harmoniously with numerous different companies, delivery and freight services and insurance companies. You can get your shipment sent along with our other backloading shipments, cut back on a lot of costs in shipment and make your customers a lot happier when they can save some money on delivery fees.


Matthew Marshall

Director, Freight People