Self-delivery or Pickup?
With this online freight calculator above, you can calculate shipping costs for international cargo deliveries from the United States to other countries.
When calculating a shipping cost to deliver your goods from the USA overseas, you have options: either self-deliver your cargo to a freight terminal or request to pick up (collect) your packed goods at your cargo location.
There is a significant difference in shipping procedures, depending on the option selected.
The online calculator provides three options. When quoting-booking, you select the option that best fits your international shipping needs. Here are the options:
- Self-deliver cargo directly to an ocean freight carrier's terminal (called CFS - Container Freight Station). This is the most cost-effective way to ship goods from the USA overseas.
- Self-deliver cargo to the nearest U.S. domestic transportation freight terminal to line haul the shipment to a CFS in the United States. Typically, that will be a U.S. domestic LTL freight carrier's terminal.
- Request a pickup of packed shipping goods from a cargo location to a freight terminal for further international shipping.
The First Option. Delivery at CFS.
You deliver your packed goods to the nearest ocean freight carrier terminal. Such terminals are called Container Freight Stations or CFS.
Our online freight calculator lists CFSs in the upper case and highlighted. CHICAGO, IL, for example.
By delivering cargo to CFS, you submit your goods directly to an ocean freight carrier. A single carrier will handle your shipping goods. Ocean freight rates should be calculated by cubic meters or cubic feet, and the rest of your shipment, until it arrives at the place of delivery designated in your bill of lading, will be supervised by a single carrier.
The CFS can properly palletize goods delivered at CFS in shipping boxes or other smaller shipping items on certified pallets.
Self-delivery cargo to a CFS is the most cost-effective to ship goods from the U.S. overseas.
The Second Option. Delivery at Line Haul.
Suppose CFS is too far away from you. In that case, you can deliver your goods packed adequately for transportation from the USA abroad to the nearest U.S. domestic LTL carrier's freight terminal for the cargo transportation from the terminal to a CFS.
We call such terminals Linhe Haul terminals. Our online freight calculator line haul terminal is in lowercase with asterisks (*) — Denver, CO*, for example.
If you deliver cargo to a line haul terminal, a line haul charge will be added to ocean freight. Freight rates in U.S. domestic ground cargo transportation are calculated per kilo or lbs. The LTL freight rates depend on Freight Class and the U.S. National Motor Freight Classification (NMFC). Freight rates for moving goods from a line haul terminal to CFS are calculated based on the dimensional weight of the cargo.
Typically, line haul terminals temporarily palletize cargo for easy transportation at no charge. However, they never followed ISPM15 rules since these rules do not regulate U.S. domestic cargo transportation. Line haul terminals may occasionally ask to pay a small fee to palletize shipping goods. You should pay the fee directly at the terminals.
The third option. Pickup (Collection).
You can also select a pickup. You should specify the type of cargo location. It is a warehouse, small business premises, or residential address.
With this option, depending on how far your cargo is from the nearest freight terminal, your goods will be transported either to a CFS or a line haul freight terminal for the line further transfer to a CFS.
Freight rates with pickups are the same as with line haul based on the dimensional weight of shipping goods.
In our business, we typically schedule pickups with LTL cargo transportation companies. LTL freight is mainly designed for cargo transportation between cargo warehouses with loading docks. If there is no loading dock, you should read about some limitations in pickups at small business premises and residential addresses.
