If you have never shipped freight before, the vocabulary alone is enough to make you want to call someone and hand it off. LTL, FTL, drayage, accessorials, reefer, BOL, NMFC — it is a language built by people who move things for a living, and it does not translate cleanly to the rest of us.
This is the guide we wish our customers had read before their first call with us. It walks through how to ship freight in and out of Washington, what actually drives cost, where things go wrong, and the choices that separate a shipment that arrives clean from one that ends up as a claim.
We run freight out of Kent every day, covering Seattle, Tacoma, Auburn, Renton, the Port of Tacoma, and the rail terminals that feed the region. What follows is what we have learned.
Step 1: Know What You Are Actually Shipping
Before you call a carrier, you need four numbers and one fact.
The four numbers:
- Weight — total weight, including the pallet. A 48x40 GMA pallet weighs 40 to 50 pounds on its own. Carriers reweigh at the terminal and will bill you for the difference plus a fee if you understate it.
- Dimensions — length, width, and height of the full palletized unit, not the loose product. Stack height matters more than people think: anything over 70 to 72 inches may not fit standard LTL equipment and gets rerated.
- Piece count — how many cartons or units are on the pallet. The BOL has to match what the driver counts at pickup.
- NMFC freight class — this is the part that throws people. The National Motor Freight Classification assigns your commodity a class from 50 to 500 based on density, stowability, handling, and liability. Dense, easy-to-handle freight (like pallets of tile) is class 50 and cheap to ship. Low-density, fragile, or high-value freight (like ping-pong balls or electronics) is class 200 to 500 and costs more per pound. Get the class wrong and you get reclassified at the terminal — and billed the difference.
The one fact: Is it palletized or loose? If it is loose, palletize it. Loose freight in LTL gets damaged, lost, and reclassed. Carriers will not say it out loud, but loose freight is treated as a problem.
If you do not know your freight class, call your carrier with a description and the weight and dimensions. They will look it up. Do not guess — the reclassification fee is worse than the five-minute phone call.
Step 2: Choose Between LTL and Truckload
This is the first real decision, and it is a cost decision.
LTL (less-than-truckload) means your pallet rides in a trailer with freight from other shippers. The carrier consolidates at a terminal, moves it hub-to-hub, and delivers it. It is cheaper per shipment for anything under roughly 10,000 to 15,000 pounds, but it is slower (two to five days regionally), touches more hands (more damage risk), and uses a density-based rate that rewards you for packing dense.
Truckload (FTL) means you hire the whole trailer. It is faster (direct, no terminal consolidation), has lower damage risk (the trailer is sealed at pickup and not opened until delivery), and is priced per mile or per load. The crossover point where FTL beats LTL on cost depends on your lane, but in the Pacific Northwest it usually sits around 8 to 12 pallets for standard freight.
There is a third option that gets less attention: volume LTL or partial truckload. This sits between the two — you are buying more than a couple pallets but less than a full load. Carriers run it on a dedicated trailer without terminal consolidation, so it has the speed of truckload with the price flexibility of LTL. We use it a lot for four-to-six-pallet shipments moving between Kent and Spokane or Portland.
The mistake we see most often: businesses default to LTL because it is what they have always done, then pay more per pound than a dedicated truck would have cost for a six-pallet shipment. Always ask for both quotes if your load is over four pallets.
Step 3: Package for the People Who Will Actually Handle It
Your freight will be picked up by one driver, sorted at a terminal by forklift operators, loaded into a second trailer, driven by another operator, and unloaded at the destination by a third set of hands. LTL freight is touched four to six times between pickup and delivery. Every touch is a chance for damage.
The packaging rules that actually matter:
- Shrink-wrap from the base up. Start the wrap around the pallet itself, not the product. Three tight rotations at the base anchor the load to the pallet. Then wrap up. A load that is wrapped only around the product will slide off the pallet when a forklift tilts it.
- Corner boards on high-value or fragile loads. Cardboard or plastic L-shaped corner boards at the four corners distribute strap pressure and stop edge crushing. They cost a few dollars and save claims.
- Do not overhang. Product that hangs over the pallet edges gets crushed by the freight stacked next to it. Keep everything inside the 48x40 footprint.
- Label the top, not just the side. The top label is what the driver and terminal see when they are looking down at the load. Put the ship-to address, piece count, and a BOL number on top.
- "Do Not Break Down" tag if the pallet must stay intact. If the customer needs the pallet as a unit, tag it. Otherwise, terminals will sometimes split loads to fit trailers.
For freight that is genuinely fragile or high-value (electronics, glass, art, medical equipment), ask your carrier about rated density pricing and consider a dedicated truckload move even if the weight is small. The premium for a dedicated truck is often less than the cost of one damage claim.
Step 4: Understand the Lane — Drayage, Long-Haul, and Final-Mile
Washington freight breaks into three distinct movements, and the carriers and rates for each are different.
Drayage is the short move between a port or rail terminal and a local facility. The Port of Tacoma and the Port of Seattle are the two ocean gateways in the region. Containers come off vessels, sit on the terminal, and need a truck to carry them the 5 to 40 miles to a warehouse. Drayage is priced per move, not per mile. The rate is set by the chassis pool, terminal congestion, and whether the container needs to be returned empty (which means a second trip). If your freight is imported by sea, drayage is the first leg of your supply chain and it is the one most likely to surprise you on cost when the port is congested.
Long-haul truckload is the I-5 and I-90 movement — Seattle to Portland, Seattle to Spokane, Tacoma to the Tri-Cities, or anywhere cross-country. This is priced per mile for contract freight and per load for spot freight. The rates move with capacity: tight in the produce season (summer into fall), looser in January and February. Fuel surcharges adjust weekly.
Final-mile delivery is the last 10 to 50 miles — the move from a distribution center in Kent or Auburn to a retail store, construction site, or business in Seattle or Bellevue. This is where liftgate service, inside delivery, and appointment scheduling live. These are called accessorials, and they each carry a fee. The most common ones:
- Liftgate — required when the destination has no loading dock. Adds $50 to $150 per shipment.
- Inside delivery — driver carries the freight inside the building, not just to the curb. Adds $75 to $200.
- Residential delivery — residential addresses carry a surcharge because they are slower and require appointment scheduling.
- Appointment delivery — a specific delivery window. Carriers charge for this and it limits routing flexibility, so the fee reflects the inefficiency.
We run final-mile out of Kent daily. The pattern we see: businesses book LTL, do not order a liftgate, and then the driver arrives at a building with no dock and either refuses delivery or the customer scrambles to find a forklift. Order the liftgate when you book — it is far cheaper than a redelivery.
Step 5: Paperwork — the Bill of Lading
The bill of lading (BOL) is the legal contract between you (the shipper) and the carrier. It is not optional. It carries:
- Shipper and consignee names and addresses
- Pickup and delivery dates
- Piece count, weight, and dimensions
- NMFC freight class and item description
- Declared value (if you want full-value coverage — the default carrier liability is capped and low, roughly $0.50 to $2 per pound depending on class)
- Any accessorial services ordered
- Tracking or pro number (assigned by the carrier at pickup)
Three things to know about the BOL:
- The driver signs it at pickup and that signature is your proof of what was tendered. If the load arrives damaged, the BOL is the document that proves what condition it left in. Take a photo of the signed BOL.
- If you do not declare a higher value, you get the default liability cap. For high-value freight, declare the value on the BOL and pay the small excess coverage fee. Without it, a $20,000 pallet of electronics that gets destroyed is settled at the carrier's liability rate — maybe $1,000.
- Note any exceptions at delivery on the delivery receipt before the driver leaves. "Box crushed, contents unknown" or "Short 2 cartons" written on the receipt preserves your claim. Once the driver leaves with a clean signature, the claim becomes much harder.
Step 6: Track It and Manage Exceptions
Modern carriers provide tracking through a pro number on the BOL. LTL tracking is less precise than parcel tracking — you usually get terminal scans, not GPS pings — but you should see pickup, arrival at the origin terminal, departure, arrival at the destination terminal, and out-for-delivery scans.
The exceptions to watch for:
- Held for reclassification or reweigh — the carrier reclassified your freight or reweighed it and the rate changed. You will get a corrected invoice. If the change is wrong, dispute it within 30 days with photos of the original weight and dimensions.
- Held for address correction — a wrong ZIP code or suite number on the BOL triggers an address-correction fee and a delay. Double-check the ship-to address before booking.
- Consignee not ready — the destination has no dock, no one to sign, or no room. The freight goes back to the terminal and you pay a redelivery fee. Call the consignee the day before delivery to confirm.
For freight that has to arrive on a specific day or window, book a guaranteed service — most LTL carriers offer guaranteed morning, noon, or end-of-day delivery for a premium. It is worth it when a job site or production line is waiting.
What This Looks Like in Practice
A typical move for one of our customers: a manufacturer in Kent builds a pallet of equipment going to a contractor in Spokane. The load is 1,800 pounds, 48x40x60 inches, freight class 70. We book it as LTL with a guaranteed delivery because the contractor is staging a job. We palletize at our dock (the customer's product arrives loose), shrink-wrap with corner boards, generate the BOL with the declared value, and schedule the pickup for the afternoon terminal cutoff. The carrier runs it hub-to-hub through Seattle, out for delivery in Spokane the next morning. Total transit: about 36 hours. Cost: a few hundred dollars including the guaranteed-service premium and the liftgate at the Spokane end.
If the same customer had called a parcel carrier for that load, it would have been billed at dimensional weight as a 150-pound-per-carton maximum — and rejected. Freight exists because parcel has a ceiling, and once you cross it, the rules change.
When to Call a Transport Company Versus Booking Direct
You can book LTL directly with carriers (Old Dominion, XPO, ABF, Estes, Saia) through their websites, and for simple, repeatable lanes that is often the cheapest path. You call a transport company like us when:
- You need drayage from the Port of Tacoma or Seattle — carriers do not run drayage, drayage carriers do.
- You need final-mile delivery with a liftgate, inside, or residential service in the Puget Sound region.
- You have a partial or full truckload that needs a dedicated trailer, not LTL terminal routing.
- You want one contact who handles pickup, transit, delivery, and claims, instead of managing three carrier portals.
- You are importing and need someone who can coordinate the ocean freight, the customs clearance, the drayage, and the warehouse receiving as one chain.
The thing about freight is that it is not complicated because the physics is hard — it is complicated because the industry has a lot of actors and a vocabulary that evolved to coordinate them. Once you understand the four numbers (weight, dimensions, piece count, class), the two modes (LTL and truckload), the three movements (drayage, long-haul, final-mile), and the one document (the BOL), you can ship anything in and out of Washington without surprises.
If you have a shipment moving in or out of Kent, Seattle, Tacoma, or the Port, and you want it quoted and booked by people who run the lanes every day, call us or request a quote. We will give you the real numbers, not the rate-card version.