Most new businesses will inevitably need to ship their product sooner or later. If they have never shipped by motor freight cargo truck they will soon find that there are important variables that they must know before shipping their product that can drastically affect their pricing.

There are of course obvious things such as the weight and distance the shipment will travel between the point of pickup and the point of delivery that will affect the rate but did you know that the density or mass of a shipment can affect pricing. Also how easy or difficult the handling of your product is will affect pricing and yet another thing is the liability the truck company will assume once they accept your shipment. In order to keep things as easy as possible for shippers and freight service providers the National Motor Classification or the NMFC was created in 1983.

The NMFC, or National Motor Classification has 18 different freight classes for which all commodities are grouped into. They begin with freight class 50 and end with freight class 500, the higher the freight class the higher your freight cost will be so it is very important to know the freight class for the item that is being shipped. The freight class is probably the single most influential information on your shipment that will affect the pricing.

The process of finding the correct freight class can be very complex at times. As is the case with most things if you don’t know you should seek out a freight shipping specialist to assist you with determining the correct freight class for your shipment.