Freight Glossary
Floor-Loaded Freight
Floor-loaded freight (also called loose-loaded) is cargo stacked directly on the floor of a truck or container without pallets, maximizing cubic capacity but requiring manual unloading piece by piece at the destination. A floor loaded 40 foot ocean container can hold 20 to 30 percent more product by volume than the same container loaded on pallets.
Why it matters
Floor-loaded containers reduce shipping costs on the import leg by fitting more product per container, but they significantly increase unloading labor time and cost, often requiring lumper services and extending dock time. The savings from extra capacity per container can be offset by $300 to $600 in devanning labor, so a total landed cost analysis is essential.
When to use it
Floor loading makes sense for high-volume imports where maximizing container utilization justifies the added unloading complexity. Factor in devanning labor and time when calculating the total landed cost. If your import program runs more than 20 containers per month, negotiate standing lumper rates at your devan facility to lock in predictable unload costs.
How Warp thinks about it
Warp's network operates on palletized freight. Floor-loaded containers need to be devanned and palletized before entering Warp's distribution flow, so planning this step in advance keeps downstream transit on schedule. Once freight is palletized, per-pallet pricing makes it straightforward to cost out the regional distribution through Warp's cross-dock network.