You’ve got business assets or personal belongings that you need to get from Point A to Point B. You could make arrangements with a specialty packaging, shipping, and crating company, and then figure out where their closest office is and block some time to transport your items there. Plus, depending on the size of the goods, you might have to rent a van or truck to transport them to the provider’s location and pull employees off of other important projects to load/unload and drive the vehicle. Fortunately, there’s another option. Some crating and shipping companies provide pickup and delivery services.
These “pickup, pack and ship services” can be a lifesaver at both ends of the engagement. But exactly what is pick up and delivery? First, the provider comes to your location to get the items and either packages them on site or carefully transports the goods to their location to prepare them for their journey. Then, when the shipment reaches its destination, rather than leaving the items in a warehouse to be collected by your team, they bring the crates or packages right to you.
5 Advantages of Shipping Pickup and Delivery Services
How can you benefit from pickup and delivery services? There are a number of advantages, including that you:
- Save time. With pickup and delivery services, essentially all you have to do is call the provider, give them information on the assets you’ll be having them crate and ship, as well as your timeline, location and other details, and they take it from there. You can then turn your focus to other projects.
- Save money. While there is typically a fee to have a packaging, crating and shipping company collect and/or drop off your items, that component of the overall shipping charge is minor compared to the cost of the time and effort you would have to expend to coordinate the process and drop off the items yourself.
- Get expert asset protection. Specialty crating and shipping logistics companies are experts in the safe transport of assets. The best providers have packaging engineers on staff who design custom blocking, bracing and cushioning strategies for each shipment and teams that produce purpose-built crates to ensure that valuable items are secure. Having your team shrink wrap goods and surround them with packing peanuts doesn’t offer anywhere near the protection that a tailored approach enacted by shipping professionals does.
- Reduce your frustration and stress. The strain that dealing with shipping logistics puts on you and your team isn’t something you should just “deal with” and dismiss. It can negatively impact your job performance and the quality and quantity of your work. On the other hand, eliminating that stress can enable you to be focused and productive on projects that have more business value.
- Develop a key business relationship. Finding a skilled and experienced custom crating and shipping company that you can rely on does more than just make the current engagement easier. It gives you a resource that you can tap into in the future without having to do hours of researching shipping providers, “interviewing” them, etc. When the next project comes up, you simply make a call and arrange for the company’s pickup and delivery experts to do what they do best.
Types of Pickup and Delivery Services
Ideally, when you connect with a specialty packaging, crating and shipping company, it should be one that offers a comprehensive suite of pickup and delivery services designed to meet every need and budget. These offerings should include:
- Business-to-business. Whether you are shipping assets to one of your company’s locations in the U.S. or overseas, or sending items to another organization or a customer, your shipper should be able to handle all the logistics.
- Residence-to-residence. From relocation to estate and trust shipping, a crating and shipping company should offer pickup from and delivery to private residences, and they should have a process for managing all the details so you don’t have to.
- Door-to-door, door-to-port, port-to-port, etc. True shipping experts can get items from any point of origin to any destination efficiently, including domestic pickup and international delivery. You simply let them know what is most convenient for you and the recipient.
- Standard and expedited. When there is no rush, standard shipping is the most cost-effective mode. However, when time is “of the essence,” expedited pickup, shipping and delivery can be worth every penny. Your shipper should have proven strategies and tactics for getting assets to their destination as safely and quickly as possible.
- White-glove pickup and delivery. A reputable crating and shipping company will always protect your goods before, during and after transport. However, with particularly delicate or valuable items, white-glove delivery provides an extra measure of care that helps ensure they arrive safe and undamaged.
- Home delivery, unpack and setup. With some residential projects, simply getting deliveries to their destination isn’t enough. Your provider should offer unpacking and setup services so that all you have to do is indicate where the item will be located and let the team go to work.
It’s also important that the provider can assist you with obtaining cargo insurance that covers your assets from pickup to delivery. For example, at Craters & Freighters, we’re able to pack and crate most high-value items with special arrangements through our insurance company thanks to our many years of very low claims ratios.
And, since every freight bill is unique, we help the organizations and individuals we work with select coverage that’s appropriate for the goods being transported, the shipping mode and route, etc. That can include Standard Cargo, JSO (Job Service Order), Limited Liability and Used Electronics & Machinery coverage.
Getting a Quote for Pickup and Delivery Services Is a Great First Step
If you have business or personal shipping needs—today or on the horizon—a great first step is obtaining an estimate for pickup, transportation and delivery. Getting a quote is easy and doesn’t obligate you to use the provider. Just be sure that in addition to the price, you assess critical factors like the provider’s experience and reputation in the industry.
Ultimately, pickup and delivery services can be an important addition to your shipping process, and can eliminate stress while saving you time and money.