The economics of a ten-unit order

Ten is our modal order size. It is also the size where buyers most consistently optimise the wrong variable, so it is worth laying out exactly where the money goes.

A ten-unit order, itemised

Now compare the two levers available. Dropping from reconditioned to rinsed grade saves about $45 a unit but loses the wash certificate, the 3 psi test record and the new gasket. Raising quantity to a full trailer saves about $30 a unit on freight and loses nothing at all.

The freight curve

The curve is steep at the bottom because LTL pricing is driven by handling events rather than distance. A single unit on a lift-gate involves a terminal transfer, a specialised delivery and a driver doing physical work. Forty-two units on a full trailer involve a loading dock at each end and a highway in between.

Distance matters less than you expect

This is the counterintuitive part. Doubling the distance does not double the freight, because the fixed handling costs dominate at small volumes and the marginal cost of highway miles is comparatively low.

A customer 900 miles away who orders forty-two units pays less per unit in freight than a customer 150 miles away who orders four. Order size beats geography, which is why we will sometimes suggest sourcing from a yard further away if it lets us fill a trailer.

Why ten is sticky

Three reasons, and I have sympathy with all of them.

• Storage. Forty-two totes is 560 square feet of floor at single height. Plenty of buyers genuinely do not have it.
• Cash. A full trailer of reconditioned units is roughly $7,100 against $1,700. That is a different approval level in most organisations.
• Caution. First orders are small by design, which is sensible. We encourage it.

None of those are wrong. What is wrong is not knowing the trade, and then spending a week negotiating ten dollars a unit on grade while paying two hundred dollars more than necessary on freight.

Three ways to get the trailer rate without a trailer

1. Consolidate across sites. If your company receives at three locations, a single trailer with three drops frequently beats three LTL shipments. Tell us all three postcodes and we will price both.
2. Consolidate across time. A standing quarterly order of forty units beats four monthly orders of ten, and we will hold stock against a committed schedule.
3. Collect. Our yard is open five and a half days a week including Saturday mornings. A pickup truck takes four units; a gooseneck takes twenty-four. For anyone within a few hours of Savannah this removes the largest line in the quote.

I would rather give you trailer-rate freight on forty units than argue about ten dollars on four.

The storage objection, costed

Storage is the most common and most legitimate reason to stay at ten. It is also worth putting a number on rather than treating as a hard constraint.

Forty-two totes at single height is 560 sq ft. Stacked three high — which empty units take comfortably indoors — it is 187 sq ft, roughly a parking space and a half. At typical industrial rent that is a few hundred dollars a year against a freight saving of $1,200 on a single load.

The honest exception is a buyer with genuinely no floor at all, where the answer is consolidation across time rather than space: order quarterly and ask us to hold.

When ten units is simply correct

If you use ten units a year, buy ten units. Holding inventory you do not need is worse than paying LTL, and a container sitting idle has the same embodied footprint as one in service.

What I am arguing against is the buyer who needs forty over a quarter and orders ten at a time because that is how it has always been done. That pattern costs roughly $1,200 a year on a 500-mile lane for no benefit whatsoever.

Published bands and the four variables behind a quote are on what used totes cost.