Less than Container Load (LCL)

What consolidation actually is

Less than container load is not a smaller container. It is a share of an ordinary container that a consolidator fills with consignments from several unrelated shippers heading to broadly the same place.

The mechanics follow from that. Cargo is delivered to a consolidation facility near the origin port instead of being loaded at the shipper's door into a dedicated box. It is received, checked, measured and held until there is enough cargo to justify sending the container. It is then packed alongside other people's goods, shipped, and separated again at the far end.

Everything distinctive about shared loads — how they are priced, how long they take, and what tends to go wrong — comes from those two facts. The container is shared, and the cargo is handled individually at both ends.

Why the pricing behaves differently

A full container is priced as a unit. Shared cargo is priced on measurement, and the measure applied is whichever of volume or weight produces the larger figure. That single rule explains most of the surprises: dense cargo is charged as though it took more space than it does, and light bulky cargo is charged on the space it occupies rather than what it weighs.

The carriage itself is often the smaller part of the total. Receiving, handling, consolidation, documentation and the charges that arise at the far end are largely fixed per consignment, so they do not shrink as the shipment gets smaller. A very small consignment can pay far more per unit than a larger one, and can in some cases cost more in total than a larger shipment would.

Destination charges are where a shared-load quote most often disappoints. They arise at the far end, they vary by port and by whoever performs the deconsolidation, and they are not always visible in an origin quote. Asking explicitly which charges will arise at destination, and who will invoice them, is the most useful question a shipper can put to any shared-load price.

When it beats a full container, and when it does not

Shared loading earns its place when a consignment is genuinely small, when a flow is new and its volume unproven, when stock is better arriving in smaller and more frequent amounts, or when working capital matters more than unit cost. Sending part-loads regularly can serve a business better than sending a full container occasionally, even at a higher rate per unit shipped.

It stops making sense as the consignment grows. There is a point at which the measured charge plus fixed handling at both ends approaches what a whole container would cost, and beyond it a full container is both cheaper and better handled. Where that crossover sits depends on the cargo's density, the route and the charges at each end, so it is worth pricing both options rather than assuming which is lower.

For some cargo it is the wrong answer at any size. Goods that must not be stacked beneath someone else's, goods that are hard to package for shared handling, and goods whose arrival timing is critical all belong in a container of their own.

Extra handling, and what it costs you

Every consignment in a shared container is handled individually at least twice more than the same consignment in a full container: once when it is received and packed at origin, and once when it is separated at destination. Each handling is an opportunity for damage, for a package to be mis-sorted, and for the cargo and its paperwork to part company.

Packaging therefore has to be built for the environment rather than for the journey. Cargo will be moved by forklift, stacked beneath goods of unknown weight, and stored briefly in a facility that is not arranged around it. Pallets should be sound, loads should stay within their footprint, and every package should be marked so it can be identified without reference to a document that may not be beside it.

Shared timing is the other consequence. The container leaves when the consolidator is ready and it is dealt with at destination as a unit. A problem with any one consignment — a documentation error, an inspection, a query about another shipper's goods — can hold the entire container, including cargo with nothing wrong with it. That risk is real, it is not controllable by an individual shipper, and it is the honest reason shared-load timing should never be treated as fixed.

Deconsolidation at the destination

At the far end the process runs in reverse. The container is moved from the terminal to a facility, stripped, and each consignment identified and set aside for its consignee. Only then can an individual consignment be released, cleared and collected or delivered.

This is why shared cargo is not available the moment a vessel arrives, and why the last part of the journey can take a disproportionate share of the elapsed time. It is also where the charges at destination are generated, which is why they are so often the part of the price nobody planned for.

The consignee's part is straightforward but easy to leave late. Know who is performing the deconsolidation, have import formalities instructed in advance, and arrange collection or delivery for when the cargo is actually released rather than for when the vessel docks. Cargo left waiting in a facility accrues storage, charged by whoever is holding it.

• Release, clearance and collection are three separate steps, and each waits on the one before it
• The consignee often meets charges the shipper never saw quoted, which is a question of terms, not of fairness
• Cargo marked clearly and packaged robustly moves through deconsolidation faster than cargo that has to be worked out