Cargo - Shipment Categories

Shipment Categories

Freight is usually organized into various shipment categories before it is transported. An item's category is determined by:

  • the type of item being carried. For example, a kettle could fit into the category 'household goods'.
  • how large the shipment is, in terms of both item size and quantity.
  • how long the item for delivery will be in transit.

Shipments are typically categorized as household goods, express, parcel, and freight shipments:

  • Household goods (HHG) include furniture, art and similar items.
  • Very small business or personal items like envelopes are considered overnight express or express letter shipments. These shipments are rarely over a few kilograms or pounds and almost always travel in the carrier’s own packaging. Express shipments almost always travel some distance by air. An envelope may go coast to coast in the United States overnight or it may take several days, depending on the service options and prices chosen by the shipper.
  • Larger items like small boxes are considered parcels or ground shipments. These shipments are rarely over 50 kg (110 lb), with no single piece of the shipment weighing more than about 70 kg (154 lb). Parcel shipments are always boxed, sometimes in the shipper’s packaging and sometimes in carrier-provided packaging. Service levels are again variable but most ground shipments will move about 800 to 1,100 kilometres (497 to 684 mi) per day. Depending on the origin of the package, it can travel from coast to coast in the United States in about four days. Parcel shipments rarely travel by air and typically move via road and rail. Parcels represent the majority of business-to-consumer (B2C) shipments.
  • Beyond HHG, express, and parcel shipments, movements are termed freight shipments.

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Famous quotes containing the word categories:

    All cultural change reduces itself to a difference of categories. All revolutions, whether in the sciences or world history, occur merely because spirit has changed its categories in order to understand and examine what belongs to it, in order to possess and grasp itself in a truer, deeper, more intimate and unified manner.
    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)