Labeling your freight
Labeling is the cheapest insurance in freight. A pallet that gets separated from the rest of your shipment and has nothing readable on it becomes a puzzle for a terminal to solve, and puzzles sit still. Proper labeling is the single best defense against a piece going missing.
What FreightSimple gives you
You do not have to design any of this yourself. When you book, we generate a Pickup Package containing a Bill of Lading and Packaging Labels, and you attach one of each to every shipping unit. See Your Pickup Package.
The rules below are about where those labels go and how to make sure they are still there at the other end.
The three rules that matter most
Where labels go
The person who most needs to read your label is the forklift operator, sitting a few feet away and facing the side they are about to put the tines into. That single fact explains all the placement guidance:
- Put a label on every face the fork tines can enter. A label on a face with no fork access is hard to read from the seat of a forklift, which means it may as well not be there.
- Keep identifying numbers next to the address. If you also have carrier tracking labels, at least one of them should sit right beside the address label rather than somewhere else on the load.
- Labels are not needed on top, unless the freight is so short that they will not fit on the side.
- Freight over 96 inches long needs a label on or near both ends. Long freight often gets handled from whichever end is accessible.
- Every handling unit gets its own label, numbered "1 of 3", "2 of 3", and so on, so anyone can tell at a glance whether the shipment is complete.
- Old labels come off. Remove or completely cover every previous label and tracking number before reshipping a pallet or reusing a box. Conflicting labels are worse than none.
Making labels survive the trip
Wrap over your labels. Temperature swings make adhesive tape lose its grip, and a label that falls off inside a trailer is gone. A layer of shrink wrap or stretch film over the label holds it on for the whole trip and keeps it dry.
- Bare metal freight needs a backup. Adhesive does not hold well on cold, oily, or galvanized metal. Write the details directly on the freight with a metal or paint marker so there is something readable if the tag comes off.
- Use a document pouch for paperwork. Loose paper taped to a wrapped pallet does not last. A pouch under the outer layer of film does.
- Check the label is readable after wrapping. It is easy to bury a label under enough layers of film that it goes cloudy.
Precautionary labels
These tell the people handling your freight something the shape of the box does not. Use them when they are true, and only when they are true, because a “Fragile” sticker on every pallet you ever ship stops meaning anything.
| Label | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Fragile, handle with care | Contents can break from a normal knock |
| This way up | The product must stay in one orientation |
| Keep dry | Water exposure would damage the contents |
| Top heavy | The center of gravity is high, so it wants to tip |
| Protect from freezing | Contents are damaged below freezing |
| Strap to wall | The load needs securing inside the trailer |
| Do not fork | Fork tines would damage it, so it needs another method |
“Do not fork” is a real instruction with a real cost. It tells the terminal they cannot handle your freight the normal way, and that often means additional charges for special handling. Only use it when fork handling would genuinely damage the freight, and expect it to affect the price. See Potential Additional Charges.
If your shipment contains hazardous materials, the required hazard labels and placards are a legal requirement rather than a precaution, and they are separate from everything above. See Dangerous Goods.
The paperwork side
Labels get your freight to the right place. The Bill of Lading is what makes the shipment billable correctly, and the details on it need to match what you actually handed over: the number of pieces, the description and dimensions of each unit, and the total weight including pallets and packaging. See Bills of Lading and Measuring your freight.
Sources
Label placement guidance and the list of precautionary labels on this page are from ABF Freight's published LTL Packaging Guide and General Packaging Recommendations for the Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) Environment (revision 1.2). Freight labeling requirements are set by NMFC Items 580 and 299, published by the NMFTA. Hazardous materials labeling is governed by transport regulations, not by these guidelines.
These are general packaging recommendations, not a FreightSimple guarantee about any particular shipment or carrier.