Volumetric Weight

Volumetric Weight

Logistics Term

What’s the meaning of Volumetric Weight?

Typically, shipping company charges rely on weight for pricing instead of volume. However, light goods take up much more space than their weight compensates for. Therefore, it would be unprofitable to price their shipments based on their weight instead of their volume. Volumetric or dimensional weight, volume weight, or cubed weight is the calculation used to measure the amount of space needed by a package during transportation.  Between the actual weight and the volumetric weight, whichever is higher is used to form the billable weight.

Advantages of Using Volumetric Weight

From the description above, it's reasonable to assume that volumetric weight increases cost, but the contrary is true. Some of the financial benefits are because volumetric weight requires you to; employ the smallest possible carton sizes, compress the compressible products to reduce space, combine the lightweight cartons where possible and reduce the number of cartons used. Another beneficial factor of the volumetric weight is its ability to ensure reasonable charges to customers looking to ship large products which are light in weight that take up more significant portions compared to the tiny but heavy commodities.

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