Why Dim Weight Matters?

admin — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 18:08:36 +0000

Shipping companies generally charge based on weight. It makes sense and frankly is one of the simplest means to do so. On that charge basis, though, they then are interested in being able to convey as much weight as (legally?) possible in a given vehicle.

What’s the Challenge?

The challenge, though, is the vehicle costs to operate are not linked to the weight conveyed. For example, let’s say a box that is 12”x12”x12” is filled with lead and weighs 75lbs. I frankly have no idea how much 1 cubic foot of lead would weigh – but go along with me anyway. If a shipping company charged $1 per lbs. they would receive $75 to move this box. If the box were filled with feathers and weighed 1 lb, they would only receive $1. That is a huge difference. They would really want to move more lead!

How can they fix that?

Enter stage left – Dim weights. Dimensional weighting is a way for the carrier to equalize these huge discrepancies. What dim weighting does is set a standard weight for a given space or volume. The dim weight equation is basically the volume of a package / a dim weight factor. Right now most carriers use a dim weight factor of 166 for domestic moves. More on that recent change in a later blog post….

So in the above example, the box might have a ‘dim weight’ of 11 lbs. (12x12x12 / 166). The shipping company takes the HIGHER of the two weights when rating. In this case the package would be rated at the ‘dim weight’ rather than the actual weight. In essence, it sets a minimum charge for a given amount of space in the vehicle that is taken up.

Because of this one of the easiest ways to lower your shipping costs is to review your packaging and shipping box considerations. We really suggest you take a look at the density of your packed products. If they are relatively light for their size – this may be an unexpected issue. We are more than happy to speak with you about ways to mitigate this.

Welcome

admin — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:52:58 +0000

Welcome to our blog. My name is Steve Thomson, the President of Sweetwater Logistics. We cater to small businesses and startups that recognize the value in outsourcing the product handling and order fulfillment tasks to a trusted partner. They do this to free up time, capital and energy that can be focused on selling, developing and marketing their business. Shortly after starting Sweetwater I realized there was a significant amount of knowledge, tips, tricks, processes and procedures within logistics and transportation that large companies were taking advantage of, but small business owners were simply not aware of. I also realized that with my personal experience of over 15 years of starting my own companies, starting companies and operations for one of the largest shipping conglomerates in the world – around the world – and generally building a reputation for returning organizations to profitability I have made loads of mistakes and learned from nearly all of them.

The intention of this blog is to give small business owners a level playing field with larger companies by sharing our logistics expertise as well as sprinkling in some things I have learned over the years running and operating both small and medium size companies in the US as well as internationally. I welcome your comments, thoughts and insights and hope to add value. Thank you for being here.