Seems like for LTL shipments in my area Amazon Freight s entering the fray. Anything I should know on how Amazon LTL operates as opposed to partnered carriers from Yellow or Central Transport?
Prior to this I would get a BOL the night prior to shipment pickup and I would confirm the PU number via phone and adjust the pickup times - I could also get a pickup ETA as well as find out if a driver was assigned in the morning (or noon) - But none of that seems to be an option anymore.
Never had a single issue with pickup and Amazon Freight (being that it is Amazon) seems a bit disconcerting.
Never had an issue but also never had to schedule a time so there’s that.
The BOL is generally sent within 12 hours of shipment plan creation. The freight pickup date that Amazon wants will populate in the freight ready date. If you change that, you may or may bot get a pickup but it will be scheduled regardless once the BOL is created.
At this point, not sure how many times we have had Amazon Freight pickup but we haven’t had an issue other than the time where they claimed the dock wasn’t big enough and drove away. LOL - it’s a 70K square foot building with 4 docks. Communicated via email with them and they showed up 2 days later.
Easy enough to schedule pickups using partnered carrier when creating workflow and shipment
The problem is not having a number to call for follow up - ok fine not a problem because we can open a case.
When I opened a case for our first LTL shipment - the concern brought up was that we have a forklift and we wanted to impress that we would be loading the shipment onto the truck - I didn’t want the driver to think that we couldn’t load the shipment if we didn’t have loading dock.
The case took two responses + mine = 3 total posts in the case thread - essentially saying that the driver would confirm before arrival - this made sense since our contact is listed in the shipment
Day of shipment pickup: Wait around ETA time - loaders notice an amazon freight truck parked across the street for about 30 mins but don’t think much of it - I arrive and see the amazon truck and immediately know that is my truck.
I see the driver walking across the street towards me speaking jibberish about the neighbors sign and how he can’t see his pickup. I confirm with the driver and tell him - it is I. He, further gripes about how amazon gave him the wrong address. They didn’t - he just couldn’t read the address correctly.
I tell him how to back the truck up and I can see he hasn’t been driving a big rig for long - turns out he’s only been on the job for two weeks.
I tell him don’t worry we’ll load the pallets onto the truck. I tell him all he has to do is arrange it inside his truck - nope! He doesn’t have a pallet jack so he requests having us push the pallets in with the forklift - which we can do if its an empty trailer but he had other shipments in there. We reluctantly agree but this is a risk since if we get the forks wrong before the first pallet we can damage someone else’s shipment.
I ask the driver why he doesn’t have a pallet jack and he goes that’s not his job, he doesn’t load - and I tell him we’re the one’s loading but arranging the shipment is not within our purview - he says he’s 53 and he won’t do it and I already don’t want to argue with a peon so I make light of it and make sure our shipment gets onto the truck so he’s happy.
But this is a fuqin problem - since, apparently, this driver hasn’t seen any of the trucks at his FC with a lift gate and no one has pallet jacks.
The expectation on every shipment to push the pallets in with the forks for the entire shipment is a risk the liability for which is a concern.
Any suggestions on how to approach this issue since opening a case through sellercentral before hand will most likely be answered by a turd (I typed taard with one a and it was blocked but turd was ok).
Please advise on how to mitigate these here amazon freight issues.
Yikes. @VTR might be able to give you sound advice with the correct contact.
I’m not surprised you had an issue. I mentioned the one time where the driver said our dock wasn’t big enough and drove away… LOL There are 4 docks that are standard issue with space.
I’ll confess that it’s a tight block and you do need some skill to back in. We only had that issue once. Otherwise they always arrive at the same time (8:30AM). This is a little easier because we have docks and plenty of people inside to load up. Scary to know that there are other sellers on that route potentially using forklifts to rearrange the inside of a trailer, essentially operating blindly in the dark…
I’m starting to get the impression that Amazon doesn’t do anything right and with logic. Could that be?
Yah they’re fuqin rtards, but do your amazon freight drivers have pallet jacks or do you guys arrange everyone else’ shipment inside the drivers truck? That can’t lead to anything good at all, which is the core issue I need to resolve and has me bothered very much.
Meaning what if you’re not the first on the route?!
Keep in mind that the other loads were at the edge of the truck - meaning the prior pickups had to do exactly the same thing which is load via forklift but since the forklift can only go so far it was at the edge of the trailer
@VTR will know. There’s a specific email addy for your issue and he has it. I had it but it’s on the OSFE bookmarked…
The driver does nothing… He shows up, rolls the door of the truck open, backs up, calls Carmen (person who handles all freight for the operation). He sits in the truck and the workers move the pallets in with a pallet jack.
A pallet jack takes up space for a pallet. You won’t find one on an Amazon truck.
I’m not going to even come close to complaining about Amazon LTL. It’s efficient for us, reliable, and most importantly cheap! Moving pallets with 6000 units on them for $98, less if we are shipping 2 or more. Sent a 5000 unit pallet to Walmart using partnered and it cost $300.
Before Amazon freight, our pallets were running in the neighborhood of $130 with Estes.
Unfortunately you are missing some components to make Amazon Freight LTL work right. You will need either a dock or a forklift as the contractor only owns the power unit and not the trailer or anything in it so no pallet jack. This means when you build a pallet you have to move it so they can center their load over the appropriate axle set for safety and logistics purposes. Lifting a pallet jack is not recommended but it is doable if you have to. Amazon freight LTL does not have lift gate options like the partnered carriers do.
IMO you should ask to opt out of Amazon freight LTL till you have some of the not-required-but-still-necessary material handling equipment.
But we did load it using a forklift. The issue is why are we handling other people’s shipments?
Even if I had a loading dock why is it my workers responsibility to handle other peoples’ shipments? That makes no sense.
Even if I had a loading dock and I was pallet jacking other peoples’ shipments - I could do damage theoretically (who’s liable?)
In this case, we forklifted our pallets onto the trailer but we had other shipments right at the edge of the trailer so we had to push those further back using our pallets via the forklift. This is the core issue.
And furthermore, if we load our stuff onto the trailer - unless we move them further in (which we can’t do if there is other peoples’ shipments (meaning why the fuq would I want to tell my loaders to get into the trailer and move everyone elses’ shipment further which was loaded to the edge of the trailer? Whether by hand or by forklift.
And this still doesn’t resolve the issue of someone else’ pickup on the same route after my shipment facing the same issue and potentially damaging my shipment.
Is there a contact that you have for amazon freight/LTL dispatch?
I guess requesting a liftgate everytime is an option which means opening a case for each shipment well in advance and see if a confirmation response is given(?) and hope they give us an empty trailer because of the lift gate request? See attachment.
Now that I think about it - a creative solution would be to use an empty pallet and move our shipment back further by that amount. At least protecting our shipment from the next guy
Because the driver is ultimately responsible for the safe center of mass of the load regardless of the various shippers. An off center of mass trailer can kill people and do more damage, which is why various shippers have to move stuff around in LTL carrier trailers from time to time.
Ultamately the carrier is at fault once they give a signed BOL.
So other shippers, also without a dock, are who you should complain about. Not the driver who is assigned a group of commercial pickups without a dock or liftgate. Amazon is dumb and has no pre-requisites for sorting shippers by liftgate/boxtruck/FTL/etc. The hauler has no way to bring a jack with an empty power unit or a way to safely get it in and out of the trailer when full and alone.
We feel your pain, as we have a two dock warehouse at our Georgia location and when we are unloading a late container we have to use the forklift on the street.
Just put a pallet jack in the trailer and tell the driver to balance their load. It is ultimately their responsibility. If they refuse when you offer a pallet jack, take a picture of the load on the trailer, and send it to Amazon. Don’t let this whole thing happen due to a lazy driver. Be assertive, if you provide all the proper material handling tools to resolve the situation.
You run that risk with any carrier. This is why you as the shipper need to prep the pallets without overhang, corner protectors, dunnage, etc and photograph/document. All the things you are worried about can happen with Yellow, Central Transport, etc the only difference is they have drivers who are responsible for seeing your face again and again.
We do this. We also have forlift tine extensions that are about 8’ so we can pickup the first few rows on a container where the dock plate would normally cause the forklift to get stuck trying to use pitch angle to get under a pallet.
You have not had a bad day till you have stuck/bottomed out, a 5000# rated forklift between the dock and the trailer.
I would still only use 1 sku per workflow/shipment ID and I assume amazon would assign a single LTL truck for pickup even if I had more than one shipment ID
Correct. We gave the driver our pallet jack and told him to have at it. The last few shipments have NOT been Amazon freight and they go off without a hitch.
