Would you go to your search engine or the Yellow Pages when you’re looking for a company to ship your products? Then, do you simply seek the lowest-priced carrier? If so, you might keep in mind the following quotes from John Ruskin, a prominent social thinker in the 1800s. His thoughts are as relevant today as they were then.

There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man’s lawful prey. When you pay too much, you lose a little money – that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought is incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. 

This is true in everything you purchase, including your choice of trucking companies to carry your cargo to its destination. Your products are valuable and deserve to be handled with care by companies that have excellent reputations for getting cargo to their destinations safely and expeditiously.

Some of the features you should check are the company’s safety records, reliability, on-time record and the age and maintenance of their fleet. With today’s new government regulations, it is easy to determine the safety record of any companies you are considering. Take the extra effort to do so. Even though you might not have any legal liability for the trucking company’s unsafe driving, your shipment could be destroyed, damaged or lost.

If the company you choose has old equipment or shoddy maintenance of their fleet, your shipment could suffer. Breakdowns cause loss of time for reliable deliveries. If their trucks look dirty on the outside, they are probably also the same on the inside, which could affect the products they are carrying.

It only takes a short time to check out the safety records and the reliability and quality of any trucking company with which you are considering doing business. Doing so may save you a lot of grief and money later.