Overview
When editing the configuration of most 3PL freight carriers (see list below) you’ll see a shipping method called “LTL”.
If you select “LTL”, ShipperHQ will automatically display all methods returned by the carrier, regardless of if you have selected them individually from the list.
Effectively, once you select “LTL” the other method selections don’t matter. This can be a timesaver as there are a lot of methods to be selected and you may not need to make individual choices, depending on your desired configuration.
For some 3PL carriers, this can also be used along with the “Show Cheapest Carrier” option which appears under the carrier’s Account Settings.
To be clear, a method named “LTL” will not be returned from the carrier; whether using the “LTL” method with or without “Show Cheapest Carrier”, the returned methods will still be listed with their original method names and codes.
List of 3PL Freight carriers.
- Cerasis Freight
- Kuehne+Nagel
- Keystone Freight
- Ryan Transport Freight
- Global Tranz Freight
- UTS Freight
- BlueGrace Freight
- Transplace Freight
Using Shipping Rules with 3PL methods
If you do not need to apply shipping rules to the methods from a 3PL, then you can simply enable the LTL method to return all methods from this carrier.
If however, you wish to use Shipping Rules to make changes to the individual shipping methods or to control when they appear, you must enable each of the carrier’s shipping methods that you would like to use.
Using Shipping Groups with 3PL methods
The details outlined above will also apply to Shipping Groups that are intended to restrict products to being quoted for LTL shipping only.
If, for example, you have an item that is under 150 Lbs but is too large to ship via a small parcel carrier, then you can restrict the shipping group to LTL shipping only. In order for this option to work, each shipping method within your 3PL carrier will need to be selected under the carrier and then applied to the shipping group in order for LTL shipping rates to be quoted.
If, however, the generic “LTL” method is the only one selected on your 3PL carrier and applied to the shipping group, then the shipping group restriction will not work and the shipping group will not receive a shipping quote for your 3PL.
For more details on restricting a shipping group to LTL/Freight shipping only, please see our setup guide, “How to Set Items that Must Ship Freight.”
You can find more details on how to restrict shipping groups on our article, “How to Configure Shipping Groups.”