Are rising freight costs cutting into your bottom line? Reducing freight fees without compromising on service is essential for your business’s cost efficiency. But, it’s easier said than done.
In this guide, we’ll provide you with actionable strategies that any business can use to secure better rates and lower expenses without sacrificing service quality.
Key Takeaways
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Regular freight audits are essential for uncovering billing discrepancies and maximizing cost efficiency in shipping operations
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Building strong relationships with carriers and utilizing data-driven negotiations can significantly lower freight rates and improve service reliability
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Consolidating shipments, optimizing packaging, and implementing effective load planning enhance shipping efficiency, reduce transportation costs, and improve overall logistics operations
Conduct Regular Freight Audits

Regular freight audits are one of the best ways to keep freight shipping costs under control and find ways to improve your logistics. They offer insight into your costs, spending, and shipping needs, which you can use to forecast your costs more accurately and ensure you get the best rates.
By reviewing freight invoices against your carrier agreements, you’ll also catch billing errors like duplicate charges, incorrect rates, or unauthorized fees. This not only prevents overpayment but also ensures you’re only paying for services you’ve actually received.
You can even automate the freight audit process with auditing tools, cutting the time it takes to find and resolve billing errors by 60% or more. That way, your team can focus on other critical tasks to help keep your supply chain flowing.
Build Strong Carrier Relationships
Your relationships with carriers play a huge role in your overall shipping efficiency – both financially and functionally. They control your costs and determine what services, like special handling or priority shipping options, you can use. Plus, their reliability directly affects whether your customers get their packages on time.
If you want the cost-efficiency, reliability, and flexibility that are required for an effective shipping process, you need to build strong relationships with your freight carriers.
You should:
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Maintain Transparent Communication: Be upfront about your shipping needs, forecasts, and changes. Clear communication helps carriers plan better and offer competitive rates.
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Provide Feedback: Share what’s working and what isn’t. Address issues quickly and acknowledge good performance to build trust and encourage improvements.
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Collaborate to Make Improvements: Work together on streamlining operations, optimizing routes, and solving problems to reduce costs and improve service.
Over time, these practices will help you build strong carrier relationships that unlock more opportunities for your business.
Use Data to Negotiate Favorable Rates

Reducing your freight costs usually starts with negotiating your carrier contracts. These agreements outline rates, fees, and other charges you pay to transport your shipments. So, if you can secure lower rates, you’ll reduce your costs. However, carriers want to maximize their income, making it much harder to successfully negotiate without evidence to support your demands.
Fortunately, you can use shipping data for a leg up at the negotiation table. Business intelligence solutions, auditing software, and other supply chain management tools help you gather essential information like shipment volume, accessorial fees charged, and carrier performance data that you can present to carriers during negotiations.
For example, high shipping volume or long-lasting relationships demonstrated by historical shipping data may lead to lower rates based on the value of continued business. Alternatively, poor carrier performance data can earn you reduced rates or fees to reflect their impact on your customer satisfaction.
Consolidate Shipments
Improving the efficiency of each shipment and reducing the number of shipments can make a huge difference in freight costs. By combining smaller shipments into a single, larger one, you can make better use of cargo space and cut down on unnecessary trips.
Programs like pool distribution and freight consolidation also make it easy to group shipments efficiently, unlocking more savings for any sized business. Pairing these strategies with package optimization and proper palletization can increase your capacity even more, maximizing the cost-efficiency of each shipment by minimizing waste.
Beyond saving money, shipment consolidation streamlines logistics by reducing the frequency of shipments and improving delivery times. It’s a smart move that lowers costs while boosting supply chain efficiency – delivering value to both your bottom line and your customers.
Optimize Packaging and Loading
Lightweight, efficient packaging materials can reduce the overall weight of your shipments, leading directly to lower shipping costs. Custom packaging tailored to your product dimensions helps minimize wasted space, ensuring each shipment is as compact and cost-effective as possible.
Smaller, more efficient packaging also improves truck space utilization, allowing you to ship more products per load and reduce the number of trips needed. You can also take your package optimization a step further by incorporating eco-friendly packaging materials that use less material to further lower costs while supporting sustainability goals that are important to consumers.
Consider Multimodal Transportation

Choosing the right mode (or modes) of transportation can help prevent wasted spending while improving delivery times. One cost-effective strategy is multimodal transportation, which utilizes various transportation methods like rail, truck, and ocean carriers to move goods between locations.
Multi-mode shipping requires additional handling, but it gives you more timely, flexible, and cost-effective options than relying on a single type of shipping for your packages. Of course, you should consider factors such as distance, transit times, cargo characteristics, and budget constraints to find the best mode for your shipments.
Ship During Off-Peak Times
Off-peak shipping involves scheduling your shipments during low-demand periods, such as evenings, weekends, or early mornings. During these times, carriers often offer reduced rates and better service options, helping you save money and avoid bottlenecks.
For even better efficiency, you can analyze your own shipping data to identify volume patterns and congestion that help you determine the best off-peak shipping timing for your business.
Work with Smaller Carriers
Bigger isn’t always better when it comes to carriers. You can save money by partnering with smaller or medium-sized shippers who generally have greater flexibility and are more likely to work with you on service levels and rates.
Even if they’re not your main shipper, adding multiple carriers can help you find the best rates available – especially when it comes to specific delivery areas or handling needs that cost much more with major carriers.
Increase Shipping Lead Times
When carriers have more time to plan, they can optimize routes, resources, and timing to boost efficiency. This leads to lower rates and better reliability for your shipments.
If you have predictable production times and stay on schedule with your shipments, clear and prompt communication can allow you to keep carriers informed about your ongoing shipping needs. As a result, you can provide extended lead times to avoid the premium charges associated with rush shipments while still ensuring timely delivery. Since expedited shipping can cost two to three times more than standard delivery, extending lead times can save you a ton.
Optimize Shipping Routes

Smarter route planning and fuel-efficient transportation can make a big difference in reducing freight expenses. By cutting down on unnecessary mileage, you lower fuel costs and avoid extra charges like fuel surcharges, which add up quickly.
Using tools like GPS-enabled route optimization helps you avoid delays and reduce empty miles, making your operations more efficient. Consolidating shipments and planning deliveries carefully further boosts savings while keeping delivery schedules on track.
Implement a TMS
No matter what cost-saving strategies you decide to implement, a Transportation Management System (TMS) can help.
Zero Down’s TMS solution makes it easy to optimize your supply chain. It offers powerful tools like route planning, load optimization, and real-time visibility, all designed to simplify logistics and reduce costs.
With features like automated shipment scheduling and real-time tracking, a TMS eliminates manual processes, reduces errors, and boosts efficiency. It also helps you consolidate shipments, optimize routes, and gain better control over your transportation expenses.
By using a TMS, you can save time, improve cash flow, and make smarter decisions with the help of advanced analytics.
Cut Down On Freight Costs with Zero Down
Understanding how to reduce freight costs can save your business a lot of money. Fortunately, there are a wide range of strategies you can implement to cut expenses and improve cost-efficiency so you can protect your bottom line – and Zero Down can help with them all.
At Zero Down, we have extensive experience optimizing supply chains from start to finish to help lower freight costs while improving service quality. With our Transportation Spend Management System (TSMS), FreightOptics, you can tackle packaging and route optimization, gather shipping data to support your contract carrier negotiations, send timely freight payments to build strong carrier relationships, and much more.
Cutting freight costs requires the right knowledge, tools, and experience. Now that you know what steps you should take, let us help guide you through the process.
Get in touch and start saving today.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the importance of conducting regular freight audits?
Conducting regular freight audits is essential as they identify billing errors and recover overcharges, resulting in substantial cost savings for companies.
How can building strong carrier relationships reduce freight costs?
Building strong carrier relationships leads to improved collaboration and trust, which ultimately results in better rates and more reliable service, thereby reducing freight costs.
Why is data important in negotiating favorable freight rates?
Data is crucial in negotiating favorable freight rates as it enables you to demonstrate your value as a customer and make informed decisions that can lead to lower costs.
What are the benefits of consolidating shipments?
Consolidating shipments effectively reduces overall freight costs by maximizing cargo space and minimizing the number of trips required.
How can a Transportation Management System (TMS) help reduce freight costs?
A Transportation Management System (TMS) effectively reduces freight costs by offering route planning, load optimization, and real-time visibility, which enhance logistics efficiency and minimize expenses.
Brad McBride, CEO and Founder of Zero Down Supply Chain Solutions is a dynamic leader with over 30 years of experience in the supply chain sector. His journey began at Consolidated Freightways in 1988, where he mastered freight logistics and pricing. His career led him to Eagle Global Logistics, diving into international freight forwarding and leading high-volume shipping projects.
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