Freight Packages: Bundling LCL for Small Business

Most small importers in The Bahamas do not fill a 40ft container. You order a few pallets of stock, a display case, some fixtures — real volume, but nowhere near a full box. The instinct is to ship it air freight because it is small. For anything heavier than a couple of boxes, that is usually the most expensive way to move it.

The alternative is LCL — less-than-container-load ocean freight. You pay for the cubic space your cargo actually takes up inside a container shared with other shippers. The trick to making LCL work for a small business is bundling: get your goods to one place, consolidated onto pallets, and moved as a single measured unit rather than a scatter of loose parcels. That is what our Pompano Beach warehouse is built to do.

How consolidation works at Pompano Beach

Our US warehouse in Pompano Beach, Florida is the collection point. You send your US purchases there — direct from the supplier or via a domestic pickup we arrange — and we hold them until you are ready to ship. Individual parcels come in under package receiving, and when you have enough to move, we build them into pallets and consolidate the whole lot into an ocean container bound for Nassau. You are paying for measured cubic space and a shared container, not a rush parcel service pricing every pound at a premium.

• Package receiving runs $5.00 per parcel, with the first 30 days of storage free — so orders can trickle in without a storage clock ticking immediately.
• Pallet consolidation is $45.00 per pallet and includes shrink-wrap and labeling, so cargo travels as a tidy, countable unit.
• LCL consolidation into a container is $120.00 per cbm (cubic metre), minimum 1 cbm, and includes the FCL build.
• US domestic pickup, where we arrange trucking to Pompano on your behalf, is billed at cost plus 15%.

Landed cost: the charges that follow the freight

Ocean freight is only part of the picture. Once your consolidated cargo reaches Nassau, a handful of predictable charges apply. Knowing them up front is what separates a clean landed cost from a nasty surprise at pickup. As a rough planning rule, the more parcels you bundle into one consolidation, the smaller each of these fixed charges becomes as a share of your total — one documentation release and one brokerage entry covering ten pallets beats ten separate small shipments every time.

• Documentation release is $181.50 per bill of lading, mandatory on every shipment and issued once funds have cleared.
• Customs brokerage on US-origin cargo is $75.00 for the first line item plus $10.00 per additional line — government duty and VAT pass through at cost.
• The LCL destination charge is $50.00 per cbm (minimum $50.00) for handling shared-container cargo at arrival.
• Local door-to-door LCL delivery within Nassau runs $60.00 per pallet, minimum one and maximum five pallets per run.

When a personal package plan makes more sense

Not every small importer needs a container build. If your volume is genuinely light — a few boxes a month rather than pallets — our PakYa personal package service may fit better. It moves goods from Pompano to Nassau at $2.50 per pound, minimum $25.00, by air or sea consolidation, and it reaches the Family Islands: Band A (Eleuthera, Abaco, Grand Bahama) adds $1.50/lb, Band B (Andros, Exuma, Long Island) adds $2.00/lb, and Band C (Inagua, Crooked, Acklins, Mayaguana) adds $3.00/lb, with ferry or air to the island passed through at cost.

The dividing line is roughly weight versus volume. Heavy, dense loads are usually cheaper by the pound on LCL; light, bulky, or infrequent shipments often land better on PakYa. If you are unsure which side you fall on, send us the item list and weights and we will price both. Whichever route you take, every consolidation and delivery runs through Hammerhead TMS, so you get real-time visibility on where your cargo sits — awaiting build at Pompano, on the water, cleared through customs, or out for last-mile delivery.

The practical takeaway: if you are importing less than a full container, do not default to air freight and do not ship loose parcels one at a time. Route your purchases to Pompano, let them accumulate on free receiving days, consolidate onto pallets, and move it as one measured LCL shipment. Send us your supplier list and rough volumes and we will map the cheapest path — bundle or PakYa — before anything ships.