WHAT IS LCL SHIPPING & HOW TO CALCULATE LCL SHIPMENTS?

LCL – Less Container Load, LCL shipping is a good way to ship large orders and items that are large or heavy. LCL shipping is based primarily on volume with a minimum shipment volume of one cubic meter.

Please note the shape of the crate does not have to be 1 meter by 1 meter, it can be any size, it is only the volume that is calculated.

We calculate LCL shipments by taking the item or items that you would like to purchase and calculate their given volumes. To do this, we first take the length, width, and depth of each piece and add from 2-10 centimeters to each dimension.

We add the 2-10 cm to the size of the pieces to allow for packing and framing. Once we get the total volume of the piece or pieces you are ordering we divide the total volume by 1,000,000.

We get the 1,000,000 figure from length 100 cm multiplied by width 100 cm multiplied by Depth 100 cm. note* there is 100 cm in one meter, thus there is 1,000,000 cm in a cubic meter.

Example:
Item #BOX 1
Quantity 1
Size 75 x 50 x 90 cm

Let us assume that this item is fragile so it will need very good packing and framing. To ensure that we are able to pack this very well, we will add 10 cm on to each side of the object. The new shipping size of Item #widget 12 is 85 x 60 x 90 cm.

85 x 60 = 5,100
5,100 x 90 = 459,000
459,000 / 1,000,000 = 0.46 or 46%

From this example, we know that widget 12 will occupy 46% or about half of a cubic meter. Since there is a minimum shipping volume of one cubic meter for LCL there is an extra 54% of a cubic meter that can be used.