What LCL actually means here
LCL — less than container load — means the consignment did not fill a container, so a forwarder consolidated it with other people's cargo into one box. That is an economic arrangement, not a handling one: the consignment travels as somebody else's neighbour and is separated again at the far end.
The consequence for receiving is the part most quotes leave out. An FCL consignment arrives as a container on a chassis and is unloaded once. An LCL consignment arrives twice: first as part of a container at a deconsolidation warehouse, then again as loose pallets or cartons on a local vehicle, days later, under a different reference, handled by a company that never saw the container.
Everything on this page concerns that second arrival — the leg from the deconsolidation point to our door. It is the leg where paperwork stops matching, and the leg we care about most.
The chain, end to end
Six steps, four sets of reference numbers, and one pallet that has to survive all of them.
1 — Consolidation
The consignment is palletised, wrapped, marked and loaded into a shared container at a container freight station. Volumetric weight is set here, and so is the pallet count we will later be reconciling against.
2 — Sea leg
Two bills of lading exist from this point on. The master bill is between the carrier and the consolidator; the house bill is the one with our name on it. Tracking the master bill tells you where the container is, which is not the same question as where the pallet is.
3 — Arrival and customs
Clearance is handled by the licensed customs broker engaged by the importer of record — not by us. Release timing on an LCL consignment is gated by the slowest consignment in the container, which is why an arrival date is not a delivery date.
4 — Deconsolidation
The container is stripped and the consignment becomes loose pallets again, held under a warehouse reference that has nothing to do with either bill of lading. This is the single most common place for a piece count to change without anyone saying so.
5 — Last-mile delivery
A domestic haulier collects from the CFS and delivers to a receiving point. This is the leg the rest of this page is about, and the only leg where we are physically present.
6 — Break-down
The pallet stops being a pallet. Cartons come off, contents are checked against the packing list, and everything that stays goes into euroboxes on a 600 × 400 footprint. The pallet itself leaves with the vehicle.
Before the vehicle leaves
Our receiving points are kerbside positions on public highway, not a yard with a gatehouse and an hour of slack. Pre-advice is what makes a fifteen-minute unload possible, so it is a condition rather than a courtesy.
| Notice | 30 minutes minimum, by phone, to the receiving desk. Not by email on the morning of delivery. |
|---|---|
| Who to call | 02-376-4732 (from abroad, +972 2 376 4732) |
| Consignment reference | House bill number and the delivery note number. The warehouse reference alone is not enough to find you in our records. |
| Piece count | Pallets and loose cartons, counted separately. “Two pallets” and “two pallets plus four loose” are different unloads. |
| Pallet dimensions | Footprint and built height per pallet. A 2.1 m build cannot come off a tail-lift the same way a 1.2 m one can. |
| Gross weight | Per pallet, not per consignment. |
| Vehicle | Type and length, and whether it carries a tail-lift and a pallet truck. See below — this one is not optional. |
| ETA | A time, in IST or UTC, stated as one or the other. Not “morning”. |
Why UTC gets a mention
Our operation runs across Jerusalem and Storrs, Connecticut — seven hours apart, on two different daylight-saving calendars that do not switch on the same weekend. Internal pre-advice, lane references and exception notes are all timestamped in UTC for that reason. A local time is fine on the phone; put the offset next to it in writing. The clocks on the home page show all three.
At the kerb
The Jerusalem receiving point is a lay-by on Agrippas Street. It is suitable for unloading pallets, and it is a position on a public highway rather than a private yard — which sets every constraint below.
| Forklift on site | No. Nothing on our side lifts a pallet. |
|---|---|
| Dock leveller | No. There is no dock, and no level surface to bridge to. |
| Required on the vehicle | Tail-lift and a pallet truck. A vehicle arriving without both cannot be unloaded and will be turned away. |
| Dwell limit | 15 minutes. The vehicle is occupying a traffic lane's worth of kerb. |
| Approach | Right-hand lane, travelling towards Agrippas Street from the direction of Jaffa Road. |
| Kerb condition | Pavement, with a dropped section. Do not run a loaded pallet truck across the untreated section. |
| Wrapping | Leave it on until the pallet is on the ground. Wrap comes off at the kerb, not in the vehicle. |
If it will not fit the point
Some consignments should not come to a kerbside lay-by at all. Call the desk before dispatch, not on arrival, if any of these apply:
- A single pallet over 1,000 kg gross — beyond what a manual pallet truck moves safely off a tail-lift onto a public pavement.
- Built height over 1.8 m, or any load whose centre of gravity is high enough to be a topple risk on a tail-lift platform.
- An overhanging or non-standard footprint that will not sit square on a tail-lift.
- A rigid over 12 m, or any articulated vehicle. The approach cannot take one.
- More than four pallets on one drop — that is a longer occupancy than the point allows, and wants splitting across two slots.
These are physical limits of the position, not policy we can waive on the day. We would much rather rebook the delivery than have a driver discover them at the kerb.
Documents and POD
Receiving is run against pre-advice and reconciled at consignment level. In practice that means we count what comes off the vehicle against the piece count we were given, and sign for what we actually took — not for what the note says was loaded.
| Delivery note | Two copies. One is signed and returned with the driver; one stays with us. |
|---|---|
| Packing list | Needed to check contents at break-down. If it travelled inside a carton, say which one. |
| Signed as | Piece count only. We do not sign for condition of contents at the kerb — cartons are opened at break-down, not on the pavement. |
| Clean POD | Piece count matches pre-advice, outer packaging intact, seals unbroken. |
| Clausing | Any shortage, damage, water staining or opened carton is written on both copies before the driver leaves, with a photograph taken at the kerb. |
| Pallet return | The empty pallet goes back on the vehicle. We have nowhere to store pallets and will not accept them as part of the consignment. |
| Wrap and dunnage | Removed at the kerb and returned with the vehicle, along with the pallet. |
Exceptions we see most
None of these are unusual on an LCL consignment. Naming them is faster than diagnosing them at the kerb with a driver waiting.
Piece count drift
The house bill says six cartons, the CFS built two pallets, and the delivery note says “2 plt”. Reconcile at carton level or the shortage surfaces weeks later.
Crush damage
Shared containers get restowed. Damage from a neighbour's consignment shows as crushing on one face of the stack — photograph the face, not just the carton.
Water staining
Tide marks on lower cartons usually mean the container, not the vehicle. Clause it anyway; the claim goes to whoever's leg it happened on, and the note is the only evidence of when it was first seen.
Re-wrapped pallets
Fresh wrap over old wrap means the pallet was opened and rebuilt in transit. Not a problem in itself; it does mean the piece count needs checking rather than trusting.
Storage charges
Demurrage and CFS storage accrue from release, not from delivery. A consignment sitting at the deconsolidation warehouse is costing money quietly. Chase the release date, not the sailing.
No tail-lift
The single most common failed delivery. A vehicle sent to a kerbside point without a tail-lift and a pallet truck cannot be unloaded by anyone present.
After break-down
Whatever is kept goes into euroboxes on a 600 × 400 footprint, which is how it is stored and how it is counted from then on. The interesting question at that point is arithmetic: how much volume did that pallet actually turn into, and how many boxes does it need.
We built a calculator for it, and it is free to use — volume in m³ and litres, Euro pallet loads at a chosen stack height, and 20 ft container utilisation.
Published for carrier and partner reference. Poppleberry Logistics receives LCL consignments for its own account and for partner businesses; receiving is not offered as a general commercial service, and nothing on this page is customs advice — clearance sits with the importer of record's licensed broker.