Dimensional weight

Pricing technique for commercial freight transport
Dimensional weight, also known as volumetric weight, is a pricing technique for commercial freight transport (including courier and postal services), which uses an estimated weight that is calculated from the length, width and height of a package. The shipping fee is based upon the dimensional weight or the actual weight, whichever is greater.

Shipping costs have historically been calculated on the basis of gross weight in kilograms or pounds. By charging only by weight, lightweight, low density packages become unprofitable for freight carriers due to the amount of space they take up in the truck/aircraft/ship in proportion to their actual weight. The concept of dimensional weight has been adopted by the transportation industry worldwide as a uniform means of establishing a minimum charge for the cubic space a package occupies. In fact, UPS and FedEx both announced that starting 2015, shipping charges on all shipments (air and ground) will be determined by greater of the actual weight and dimensional weight of a package. Prior to this announcement, dimensional weight charges were only applicable to packages of a specific size range.

Dimensional weight favors shippers of dense objects and penalizes those who ship lightweight boxes. A box of unpopped corn kernels will likely be charged by gross weight; a box of popcorn will probably be charged by its dimensional weight. This is because the large box of popcorn takes up a lot of space but does not fill up a vehicle's capacity in terms of weight, making it an inefficient use of space. Shippers avoid dimensional weight charges by using smaller boxes, by compressing their goods, and by reducing the use of packing materials.

Dimensional weight is commonly used for invoicing by air freight forwarders, truck carriers, as well as all commercial airlines worldwide. In 2007, DHL, FedEx, United Parcel Service and USPS adopted the dimensional weight system for ground services. In May 2007, the United States Postal Service (USPS) adopted dimensional weight, calling it "Shape Based Postage Pricing". This rate system is designed to charge more for lightweight items, and also to recover costs involving manual sorting and handling, since many postal machines are built to handle flats. This system would charge much more for mailing a parcel than a flat envelope. It encourages mailing books and DVDs in flat paperboard or plastic envelopes, rather than padded mailers. Such companies use automated systems called dimensioners for calculating both dimensional and actual weight and invoice their customers accordingly. More and more transport and logistics companies including warehouses and retailers are investing in dimensioning equipment for calculating the dimensional weight of their packages in order to keep in line with their carriers and avoid back charges. Cube weight is used in less than truckload shipping (LTL) to fill trailers with small heavy objects in them with light weight large objects to increase load factor. Generally cube and weight are reference data from the shipment table.