Consolidation Is The Key To Saving on Material Handling Costs
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.
To sign up for our monthly trade show tips newsletter email us at info@ttskyline.com
World Blog
Trade Show Displays Chicago Interview
Trade Show Displays Chicago Interview
Trade Show Exhibit Rental
That’s a good tip about material handling and saving money on trade show freight. Another way is renting your booth from a depot that is close to the show hall and saving lots on freight charges.
Trade show displays King99
Consolidation is key! Very well said, I think companies have already realized this and are taking action already. Many trade show displays are extremely compact; they unfold and attach/detach at certain areas so that the booth can be consolidated as small as possible. This saves companies valuable money in terms of shipping costs and manual labor. I can only see this trend continuing to improve in the near future.