Shipping to a Terminal as a Shipping Strategy

You may choose to pick up your palletized freight order at a Shipping Terminal as a shipping strategy for a couple of reasons. Having your order shipped to a terminal where you pick it up can often allow you to take possession of your product more quickly, and it may save you money. *Please note: this option applies to palletized freight orders shipping via TForce Freight. This does not apply to ground packages, or other carriers.

When is a Shipping to a Terminal a good solution?

There are several situations that may prompt you to go this route. If your delivery point is a residential address, is a storage unit, has some other access limitations, or requires a lift gate, it often extends your delivery time and each of those have associated fees. It is important to recognize that if you do not choose these services when you check out, the back-charges are a little more than the initial fees if they had been identified at the time of order, and would already be on the BOL. (We are not providing a monetary value to the fee in this post, as they do change. You can, however, see what those fees are at check out.) You can check the TForce Freight Service Center Directory to find the closest terminal.

Lift gates

Some routes do not always have trucks with lift gates, or they share those trucks for a given delivery radius. Your order may sit at the terminal until they are able to schedule it into a run with a lift-gate truck. A liftgate is required if you do not have a dock or a suitable forklift or if you plan to hand stack the order off of the back of their truck.

Limited Access Delivery Points

Storage Units or Storage Facilities are limited access and require an appointment. If your driveway or rural road is not passable by a semi/rig, and it requires a straight truck, this may delay your delivery. If a re-delivery attempt is needed, there is a fee.

Residential Delivery Points

In addition, a residential delivery point has an associated fee.

Shipping Terminal Considerations

A customer needs to consider their vehicle’s ability to transport their ordered items from a terminal to their desired location (noting that most terminals expect the entire shipment to be taken at the same time). If they can transport the order, they should determine where the nearest delivering terminal to them is (which we can assist them doing), so that a consideration of the mileage may be assessed as reasonable.

How to Pick-up at a Shipping Terminal

If picking up at the terminal is deemed reasonable, then the address of the terminal should be used as the ship-to address on their order with the contact field being completed as “Hold for (customer’s name) + (phone number)”. *This is only an option for palletized freight orders, not UPS ground orders.

When picking up at a terminal, it’s important that you call the terminal to get their specific details on how they wish for you to proceed. Practices or procedures may vary from one terminal to the next. Pickup hours should be requested since most terminals do not have 24/7 pickup available. Having proper identification that links one to the shipment is highly recommended. For a smoother hand-off, it is encouraged to have the contact name match the name of the individual doing the pickup. With COVID-19, freight terminals may require social distancing and/or masking. If the customer’s vehicle is not a dock high, most terminals are able to load a pallet into a non-dock high vehicle from their parking lot. Also, some customers simply transfer the items from the pallet into their vehicle and leave the pallet at the terminal.

Inspect your order

It is still important to note any damage or shortage on the Delivery Receipt by comparing the packing list with the contents on the pallet at the time of picking up the shipment. Once the order leaves their facility, they (and we) are considering it complete.

Shipping to a Terminal as a Shipping Strategy