Rate Shopping For Less-Than-Truckload Shipments

This guide will walk you through the process of selecting less-than-truckload (LTL) rates and preparing your shipments, including the option to add pallets. Please follow these steps to efficiently manage your LTL shipments.

After confirming the box contents and products, the next step is to confirm your shipment type.

Selecting Shipment Type

When you are ready to prepare your shipment, you will need to select the appropriate shipment type. There are two options available:

• SP (Small Parcel): Select this option if your shipment qualifies as a small parcel. This typically includes smaller and lightweight packages. If you have chosen a small parcel as your shipment type, then your resultant workflow will be different from the one in this guide. You can find the SP guide in the relevant section of the knowledge base.

• LTL (Less Than Truckload): Choose this option for larger shipments that do not require an entire truck. LTL shipments are ideal when you have multiple items to ship together.

LTL Shipment Options

If you select the "LTL" option, you will have access to additional features and options to customize your shipment.

The workflow for LTL shipments is as follows:

a. Pallet Selection

• Pallet 1: Please select the number of pallets required for your shipment. If you have multiple pallets, you can specify each one individually.

  • For each pallet, you will need to provide the following information:

    • Length (inches): Enter the length of the pallet or box in inches.

    • Width (inches): Enter the width of the pallet or box in inches.

    • Height (inches): Enter the height of the pallet or box in inches.

    • Weight (pounds): Enter the weight of the pallet or box in pounds.

• + Add Pallet: Use this button to add additional pallets if needed. Each pallet can have separate dimensions and weight.

b. Action Buttons

• Duplicate: Click on this button if you want to duplicate the pallet configuration (dimensions and weight) for another pallet. This prevents users from typing the same entries multiple times to create the same pallets.

• Remove: Deletes the latest pallet configuration and reduces the total count of pallets by one.

• Restart Packing: Discards all the information entered into the packing module for the chosen order and resets the completion rate to 0%.

Please note that all progress is lost if you click on Restart Packing and confirm your choice. Hopstack support will not be able to assist you in this case and you will have to configure your boxes and pallets again from the products present in the order.

• Skip: Skips the entry of pallet information and proceeds to mark the order as completed manually. This workflow skips the generation of shipping labels of ANY kind and proceeds to the final stage directly.

Right now, the "Skip" option does not skip the shipment label generation. It will take you to the old flow and generate the label.

• Submit: Submits the specified pallet configurations to all integrated shipping carriers (or aggregators) and receives the rates for the user to choose from.

At least one pallet needs to exist for the workflow to function as intended.

Once submitted, the system will populate the integration rates that have been sent in by the various available shipping integrations, including Amazon-partnered carriers (if applicable)

The system will also populate the following attributes about the charges:

1. Lowest Price - The carrier with the lowest absolute price of shipping

2. Fastest Delivery - The carrier with the lowest absolute estimated delivery date (taking today into consideration)

Users will now confirm the rate calculated by the platform and click on Submit.

Choosing ‘Skip’ or ‘Restart Packing’ will perform the same actions as listed above.

The Users will have the visibility to view the end user-selected carrier on the marketplace such as eBay, Shopify, etc. This ensures that the user who is packing the product doesn’t have to go back to the marketplace to check the selected carrier.

After confirming your box and pallet details, you can proceed to generate labels for your shipment. The system will automatically generate shipping labels with the necessary information for each item and pallet. These labels will be ready for printing and will print out of the designated printer connected to the station at which this activity is taking place.

Please ensure that you attach the correct labels to each corresponding item and pallet before sending them for shipment. Once done, you can mark the order as complete and the status will be updated in the relevant records in our system.

Please note that purchasing a label through a non-partnered carrier does not guarantee the scheduling of a pickup. You are encouraged to verify pickup instructions through one of the following ways:

1. Your Shipping Aggregator’s portal

2. Offline by directly connecting with the carrier