Consolidation Is The Key To Saving on Material Handling Costs
Feb 12th 2008Alex TuckerTrade Show Freight & Trade Show Tips
What is Material Handling?
Material handling includes the unloading of your exhibit materials, storing them at the advance warehouse and delivering to the booth space, the handling of empty containers to and from storage, and removing of material from you booth for reloading onto outbound carriers when the show closes. It should not be confused with the cost to ship your exhibit materials to and from the convention or event. You have two options for shipping your exhibit, literature and promo material to the show, advance warehouse or directly to show site.
Material Handling Charges
Charges from show decorators like Freeman, GES or Champion are be based on the weight of your shipment. Each shipment received is considered separately. The shipment weight will be rounded up to the next 100 pounds. Each 100 pounds is considered one “cwt.” (one hundred weight).
There is a 200 lb minimum charge for each shipment weighing less than 200 lbs. The average “cwt” charge ranges from $50 to $150 for straight time.
This means that one carton of literature shipped in to the show separately and not consolidated will be charged as if it was a 200 pound skid and you will be charged somewhere is the range of $100 to $600 for material handling. You may have shipped that last minute carton(s) thinking you were actually saving money by using UPS or FedEx instead of a trade show common carrier like Associated Global or Roadway.
What can you do to save money?
It is very important to consolidate your shipments and make sure all literature and promo items ship to the trade show in one shipment, via truck, to advance warehouse preferably with your exhibit.
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