LCL Shipping – Groupage Shipping

LCL shipping, for the texting generation’s benefit, is not to be confused with LOL. The proper LCL definition is a shipment ‘Less than Container Load’, and it means in practice that your freight forwarder is going to be earning his money by getting you the best deal.

Because you have just one or maybe a few pallets to ship, you cannot by yourself get competitive shipping rates. Freight haulage is geared up for transporting containers, typically of 20 foot or 40 foot length; and the ideal is to persuade your recipient to take exact container load quantities.

Fortunately there are many other companies who want to send consignments of sub-optimal size so the freight forwarder arranges ‘LCL Shipping’ or ‘Groupage Shipping’ – literally grouping your goods with others that need to take the same route, to make up full containers.