Auto Transport Tips: How Shipping Multiple Vehicles Saves You Money
The notion of transporting multiple vehicles and saving money seems rather absurd to many people – after all, if one vehicle costs $800 to ship, wouldn’t two vehicles cost $1600 to ship? You’d think, and in some instances you’d likely be right, but really it’s like any time you buy something in bulk: the more you buy at once, the cheaper it is per item.
For instance: you can pay $4 for four rolls of double-ply toilet paper at the local market, which equals about $1 per roll. But, if you go to Costco, and buy 48 rolls of toilet paper in one big bundle, you’ll likely only spend $12 on the entire thing, which equates to about $.25 per roll – that’s a huge discount!
I’m probably way off on the real numbers, but the idea is that when you buy a bulk amount of items you end up paying less per item, and this works in just about any industry, including auto transport.
The reason why it works in the auto shipping industry is that more vehicles per load equals less stops that an auto shipper has to make, basically. Think of it this way: auto shippers tend to have to zig-zag around the country, or the region they’re operating in, in order to pickup and deliver loads.
Now imagine that they only have to make two stops: one pickup, one delivery, as opposed to 8-10, and they still make the same amount of money, if not more, for that one delivery. Multiple vehicles being picked up allow them to do that, especially if there’s an entire load of vehicles (this is why auto shippers tend to want to ship for manufacturers, as they can just deliver an entire load straight to one dealership from the factory).
It’s a lot easier for shippers to make one delivery of ten vehicles than ten deliveries of one vehicle each, as it cuts down drastically on how much they spend in fuel and tends to decrease the amount of time it takes. This is the main reason why shipping multiple vehicles nets you a discount per-vehicle, even though you’re spending more on the entire shipment.
It’s also why it’s going to be a lot cheaper to ship multiple vehicles with one carrier as opposed to shipping with 8-10 individual carriers. Plus, when using a car transport broker to setup the shipment for you, they tend to take a commission on a per-carrier basis; that is, if you’re shipping eight vehicles and they have to find eight different carriers for you, they’ll charge full-deposit for each vehicle, because that’s a lot of work.
However, finding one carrier for you that can haul all eight vehicles takes a considerable less amount of work, and like the carrier they’ll give you a discount on their price per-vehicle, saving you money on the broker fee. So you end up saving on the shipment itself as well as the broker fee, which can add up to literally thousands of dollars in savings.
Of course, it’s going to cost you a lot more than shipping just one vehicle, but that’s the way it goes. Multi-car shipment discounts tend to help out customers that ship a lot of cars, like auction houses or dealerships, so if you find yourself moving a lot of cars at once quite often, it’s best that you find a broker and stick with them.
Not only will you get the multiple vehicle discount, but companies also like to reward repeat customers with discounts as well. Brokers keep track of every single order that they ship, and if you ship multiple times with a single company you’ll likely start seeing even more discounts based on your loyalty to them.
You can get a free quote from a reliable shipping company by filling out our free online quote form. If you do, you’ll see your estimate immediately and be contacted with a quote within minutes. You may need to call an agent, though, if you’re shipping more than one vehicle. But our agents are happy to give you a quote right over the phone. So give us a call or read more about the car shipping industry via this helpful link for more.
Since 2007 Dave has written all the content and blogs for American Auto Shipping and during this time added the duties of customer support and transport logistics.
He currently resides in Washington with his three kids and their mom and cat. A fan of Marvel movies and good stories, when not shipping cars Dave can be found working on his novel, enjoying a good book or playing some tournament HALO.
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