Common Courier Services Terms You Should Know

When you're a business owner who does a lot of shipping and receiving, you will probably need to hire a courier service, like Newcastle Transport Specialists, to make your business run with more efficiency. Courier companies don't just pick up and deliver packages, they also offer a number of other services that can benefit your company. So to help you increase your understanding, here are some common courier services terms that you should know.

Bill of Lading—This is the document that specifies all the details of a shipment, including the name of the shipper, the person or company who is receiving the shipment, the number of packages being delivered, the total weight, a description of the items being delivered, declared value and insurance information.

Dangerous/Hazardous Goods—You can hire a courier service to transport dangerous or hazardous goods, which are defined as goods that can pose a threat to the health and safety of the public if transported by plane. Some examples of dangerous or hazardous goods are pesticides, herbicides, car batteries, poisons, chemical solvents, paint thinner, paint and bleach.

Declared Value—Courier service companies determine insurance rates for your packages based on the declared value, which is the figure that you write down that indicates what the items you are shipping cost to buy.

Delivery Confirmation—Delivery confirmation is a courier service's way of letting you check to see if an item was delivered, by typing in a reference number on the courier's website and seeing the delivery information. Typically, you can can select several types of delivery confirmation, including delivery without a signature, delivery with a signature, and delivery with an adult signature, which requires the recipient who accepts the delivery to be 21 or older.

LTL and FTL—LTL is an acronym for 'less than truckload,' and it's a designation that courier services use to indicate that you've paid for a shipment that doesn't fill up a delivery truck. This usually means that your items will be delivered along with the merchandise of other clients, which could slow down delivery. FTL is an acronym for 'full truckload,' and means that you're shipping a sufficient number of items to fill a truck. In this instance, the courier service would not have to make any stops other than to the recipients on your master list.

Reverse Logistics—A fancy courier service word that means a recipient of goods or products is returning those items for some kind of reason, usually because the shipment was incorrect, damaged or not what he wanted.