Stretching your trade show dollar — Drayage.

So I was filling my car this weekend and it hit me, kind of like a frog who realizes he’s being boiled alive. $52.70 worth of ouch. Now, I know that prices have been going up and the American dollar is about as a strong as a wet noodle, but this weekend at the pump I finally felt it.

So, with financial ruin looming, what do we do? At work, how do we stretch our tradeshow dollar and in the process keep our heads off the corporate chopping block? Let’s begin with a concept called drayage.

For those who don’t know, ‘drayage’ is a service for moving your display from the truck to the show floor, and back again after the show. Drayage  also includes removing and storing your empty cases. It can cost anywhere from fifty cents to over a dollar per pound. So for every hundred pounds, that means you're paying $50 to $100 so someone else can transport your display.

Here are a few things that most people don’t know:

• Most show contractors have a 200 lb minimum. Even if you only ship a 68 lb pop-up booth to the show, it will cost you at least $100 to $200 dollars in drayage. Read the show rules and see what they say about carrying it yourself.
• Drayage is measured in 100 lb increments. If your shipment weighs 208 lbs you will be charged for 300 lbs. If you're toeing the line, it might be wise to consider carrying the brochures in yourself or leaving a stool out.
• If your booth is pad wrapped or contains loose boxes you will most likely get a 25% special handling charge.
• If your booth arrives at the dock after hours or on the weekend you will be charged drayage plus overtime, usually 25%. Note that this time is factored when they start unloading, not when the truck gets there.
• Some show halls charge differently for freight vs. vanline or company truck. In other words, if you ship your booth via a display shipping company, you might get charged 15-25% less than if you decide to ship via common carrier, UPS or even drive it up yourself.
• Drayage is charged according to the least common denominator. If you have one thing out of an entire semi-truck that is pad wrapped, the entire shipment most likely will be charged a special handling fee. If one item needs a cart or if it needs to be carried you will be charged an extra 25%.

So here is how it could pencil out:

Let’s say you ship a booth that is 518 lbs and the drayage is $1.00 per CWT, expect to pay $600 dollars. Well, Dominic in engineering threw in a small case as the truck was leaving. Drayage now would be $600 + $150 for special handling. To make matters worse this shipment was unloaded after hours, so we add a $187.50 overtime fee to our total, and the final drayage bill is $937.50. What a nightmare!

So, in short: be creative and keep an eye on your drayage.

Tags: trade show, tips, sales, ken pettit